Life inside the notorious titular Brazilian prison--where a 1992 riot led to the deaths of more than a hundred inmates--is the subject of Hector Babenco's (Kiss of the Spider Woman) epic-length film based on a bestselling book by Dr. Drauzio Varella, who served as a physician in the overcrowded Sno Paolo complex. Both a huge, sprawling portrait of the highly organized criminal society that dominated the prison and a cry of rage against social injustice, Carandiru is constructed as a mosaic of interlocking vignettes (ranging from the near-farcical to the tragic) depicting the stories of individual prisoners, linked by the presence of the doctor who treats them all. Babenco makes the claustrophobic feel of the locale almost palpable, but the narrative periodically cuts to the outside world in flashbacks to the prisoners' past lives, before the final section depicting the riot of 1992 (which is harrowing in the extreme). Carandiru is only sporadically powerful, displaying a streak of sentimentality beneath its gritty exterior that occasionally saps the film's strength, but it succeeds more often than not in capturing the horror of the place and what transpired there. Recommended, overall. [Note: DVD extras include subtitled audio commentary by director Hector Babenco, a 32-minute making-of documentary, seven deleted scenes, and two “historical footage” segments (“State Penitentiary 1928” [7 min.] and the brief “Carandiru's Implosion”). Bottom line: a solid extras package for a harrowing film.] (F. Swietek)
Carandiru
Columbia TriStar, 145 min., in Portuguese w/English subtitles, R, VHS: $50.99, DVD: $29.95, Sept. 21 Volume 19, Issue 4
Carandiru
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