Carandiru
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Actor: Ailton Graça, Ivan de Almeida, Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos, Maria Luisa Mendonça, Milton GonçalvesBrand: Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Thai (Subtitled); Korean (Subtitled); Portuguese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 145 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-21
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Product features:
- Director's commentary
- Deleted scenes
- The Making of Carandiru Featurette
- Historical footage
DVD Reviews of Carandiru
DVD Review: An Epic Film of Monumental Importance!
Summary: 5 Stars
CARANDIRU is in every sense of the term an Epic film: based on a novel by a physician who wrote of his experiences in the largest prison in South America (Carandiru housed 7000 inmates in Sao Paulo, Brazil before its implosion in 2002), it documents the barely known Carandiru Massacre of 1992; it examines the individual lives, psyches, and social behaviors of prisoners in a vastly more comprehensive manner than any other film about prisons; it captures on film the squalor and tragedy and even comedy of a segregated male population who must find a means to live despite the deprivation of prison life. Hector Babenco ('Pixote', 'Kiss of the Spider Woman', etc) has written a screenplay based on the novel 'Esatacao Carandiru' by Drauzio Varella, the physician who was drawn into the drama of Carandiru after his initial academic foray into gathering blood samples from the prisoners for his work on the epidemiology of AIDS. As portrayed with great tenderness by Luis Carlos Vasconcelos, the doctor becomes father confessor to the men within the squalid walls of Carandiru, gradually unveiling the secret pasts of the prisoners - their backgrounds, their reasons for incarceration, their modes of behavioral adaptation to life in the vast structures of Carandiru. Babenco has cast this enormous crew of prisoners with actors who are so fine that they offer some of the finest character cameos on film: Ivan de Almeida ('Ebony') is the prisoner gatekeeper who wisely controls the comings and goings of the men; Lazaro Ramos ('Ezequiel') is but one of the drug addicts whose dependence on drugs is far from his pre-prison life as a well-known surfer; Caio Blat ('Deusdete') and Wagner Maura ('Zico') grew up as orphaned brothers only to be joined later by separate crimes as roommates in Carandiru; Milton Goncalves ('Chico') provides the doctor with first-class medical assistance while falling in love with ( and marrying) 'Lady Di' (in a breakthrough role of the gifted actor Rodrigo Santoro, whose roles in 'The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone', 'Behind the Sun', and even 'Charlie's Angels - Full Throttle' show promise of a very important screen presence), and many, many more. The cast includes both female and male actors (Carandiru has visiting days when families can see the prisoners) and without exception, each role is etched into the canvas that is Carandiru in an extraordinary fashion. The point of the film seems to be a prelude to the last thirty minutes that very graphically depicts the riot and massacre of 111 prisoners by the prison's riot squad. But it is the scope of humanity examined by Babenco that creates our identification with the victims and survivors of this tragedy. Extra features on the DVD include deleted scenes, each of which is so fine that it seems a shame they landed on the cutting room floor, and a series of scenes being filmed showing Babenco in action as a director - certainly some of the more tender interactions between directors and actors on film as well as an insight into the way in which directors communicate their vision (and achieve it) through the filming process. There are also interviews with author Varella who has important asides about the adaptation of his book
The musical score is hauntingly appropriate, the camera work is some of the best you'll see in today's cinema, and the overall effect after the film is over is one of awe and respect for the director and the actors and the indictment of prison life to which we rarely have access. A brilliant motion picture, worth more than Five Stars!
Description of Carandiru
Acclaimed international filmmaker Hector Babenco dramatically captures the powerful intensity of this true story of hope and survival inside Brazil?s most notorious prison. Based on a true story of the day of the Carandiru massacre.The setting is grim, but Carandiru is easily one of Brazilian filmmaker Hector Babenco's most living, thriving works, with scores of powerful performances and an engaging style underscoring the cathartic power of storytelling. Based on a bestselling novel, Carandiru concerns an oncologist (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos) who treats patients at Sao Paulo's House of Detention, a terrible place largely policed from within by longtime prisoners. The doctor is specifically interested in collecting blood samples for an HIV study, but the more prisoners open up to him, the more compassionate and committed he becomes about their survival. Babenco's episodic structure gives Carandiru a dimension of memory and constant shots of energy, so that even the most horrifying events--drug-related murder, rape, revenge--can't drive this tale into abject misery. Based on actual events, the drama's climactic police raid on the prison (a reconstruction of a 1992 riot called the Carandiru Massacre) is a tour de force. --Tom Keogh
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