Brazilian Dreams: Visiting Points Of Resistance

Winner of a Best Documentary award at the 1991 Humboldt State University Film & Video Festival, Brazilian Dreams is the product of a pair of San Francisco filmmakers, Caitlin Manning and Chris Carlsson, who traveled to Brazil in 1988 and filmed the stories of several people who stand in opposition to either the political or cultural status quo within present day Brazil. Divided into six parts, the program examines such diverse aspects of Brazilian life as the growing political and social conscience of the Women's Street Theatre in Sao Paulo, and the plight of the rubbertappers in the Amazonian rainforest who are literally sometimes fighting for their lives. "On the Xingu" interviews a man standing on the Transamazonian Highway--an unspectacular freeway consisting of mud and dirt, that the man calls Brazil's "colonization fiasco." Other sections cover the Black Pride movement in Bahia, and a large scale meeting of Amazon Indian tribes against the proposed construction of a dam (a meeting, which the filmmakers point out, went largely unreported by the local press). In many respects, Brazilian Dreams is an intriguing political travelogue, marred only by the occasional decision of the filmmakers to voiceover translate rather than subtitle the interviewees. The voiceover was a bad move because the Americans' tone often carries unnecessary sarcasm which is not present in the speakers themselves--making the filmmakers seem like a pair of standard San Franciscans walking around with someone else's chip on their shoulder. Other than this minor complaint, this inexpensive documentary is highly recommended. (Available from: BACAT, 1095 Market St. #209, San Francisco, CA 94103.)