As I´ve studied Brazil for some time, I have always known it is a country of contradictions. It may be home to some of the most stunning landscapes, wildest parties and friendliest people, but they coexist with a much crueler reality, of dangerous favelas, unemployment, drugs and crime. This latter, darker side of Brazil is ever present as you live your daily life here, especially in some of the neighbourhoods that surround me. You are told from the start “Cuidado minha filha, don´t take that route, get home before dark and always stay alert.” There is even a law that allows you to pass through red lights after 10pm, to avoid leaving motorists vulnerable to attack.
However, as a girl from South London, I think I´ve got my head screwed on. I don´t wander about here at night, as I´d never dream of doing that at home anyway. Here, I live far away from my friends and I´m vehemently independent, so if I want to go out, I have no qualms with jumping on a bus and getting there myself. I must admit I was slightly terrified when I arrived here and the first news report I saw was of a daylight robbery on a bus in Fortaleza… but if you watched the news daily you wouldn´t leave the house. The buses are truly no problem at all, as long as you know your route and have your wits about you. It even makes me smile to think of the upper classes who wouldn´t even contemplate taking public transport here for fear of rubbing shoulders with Brazil´s uglier aspects, like the beggars and that are a permanent feature at the bus terminals.
But sometimes I must admit I´m naïve. I knew that Maracanaú, where we teach, was a high risk neighbourhood, but we´ve never witnessed a thing out of the ordinary. It wasn´t until a teacher at Rui Barbosa (the school we teach at on Wednesdays) was shot dead in her car two weekends ago that we began to realize we had been living in an area that truly has no law. “Yeah it was her ex-boyfriend” one of my 11 year old students tells me without batting an eyelid. Apparently, murders through fits of jealousy are common. It was the fact that everyone knew exactly who had killed her that exasperated me, is he not afraid of prison? Apparently not – maximum sentence for murder is 30 years, and he could serve as little as 5 if he behaves well. It was quite a shock, as it always is when the two sides of Brazil collide.
Last week, the long anticipated sequel to one of Brazil´s finest depictions of its darker side, Tropa de Elite 2, was released. The first installment followed the story of Roberto Nascimento and his ‘elite squad’ of warrior police that are at war with the drug dealers of Rio´s deadliest favelas. The BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais) are who you call when there is noone else that can handle the job.
They are a brutal force, a killing machine, leaving the bodies of bandidos spread across the city in their wake. But the film poses the question of whether their aggression is reasonable or not. It is right to torture and beat people´s brothers and sons into giving information, then setting them free to be killed by their own gang? What is the difference between a vagabundo that murders and a police force that does the same? Where is the line between a violent drugs lord and a student that sells weed on campus? We watch as innocent people are caught up in the BOPE’s operations and pay with their lives, and as Nascimento slowly loses his family and mind, consumed by the batalhão. It gave me goose bumps to witness such an atrocious reality, but the worst part is that it is true.
Tropa de Elite 2 takes things further. ‘This time, the enemy is different’, the tagline reads. The first film touched on petty corruption in the police force, but the second goes to town exposing the obscene corruption that sustains the crime in Rio from the military police to the state government, to the very Ministry of Defence. If the police are willing to steal, rape and murder those who are close to discovering the truth, there is no one left to call. Once again the chilling fact that the gripping story had its basis in truth that stings.
But don’t despair. There may be a long way to go, but every Brazilian in the audience that cheered when Nascimento gets his hands on the most corrupt of all politicians and tells him he will see him in court, proves that the vast majority of the population abhor what goes on in the lawless pockets of their country. They applaud Padilha’s exposure of what goes on in an attempt to change it. Thankfully, I´ve only crossed paths with people who are generous, open and pure of heart. The dark side of Brazil is extremely dark, but the bright side is blinding.
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