Director: Jorge Durán
Writer(s): Jorge Durán, Dani Patarra
Actor(s): Caio Blat, Maria Flor, Alexandre Rodrigues
Production Co.: El Desierto Filmes; Europa Filmes
Country: Brasil
Year: 2008
Language and subtitle information: In Portuguese; optional Portuguese, English, French, and Spanish subtitles
Format: DVD
[ratings]
Summary: “The story of three friends in Rio de Janeiro: Leon, a sociology student; his girlfiend Leticia, an architecture student; and Paulo, a medical student and Leon’s best friend and roommate. Although Paulo finds himself attracted to Leticia, his friendship with Leon prevents him from acting on his feelings. When Rosalind, a leukemia patient at the hospital where Paulo interns, asks him to get in touch with her sons, the three friends are pulled out of their relatively tranquil lives and drawn into the violence and police corruption in one of Rio’s infamous favelas”–IMDb synopsis.
Supplemental Materials:
This film is about a love triangle between three university students, and the violence they encounter while helping a hospital patient find her sons whereabouts. Police corruption in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro contrasts a humorous dialogue throughout the movie, which heightens the political statements the director asserts. With good acting and a solid story line, this film shows the lack of social justice that exists for the lower and middle class.
Though on the surface it appears to be a romance concerning an unconventional love triangle between friends, Proibido Proibir is more so a drama addressing the inefficiency of the public school and health systems, and the overwhelming corruption that exists within the military police force. Initially, not much seems to happen outside of illustrating the protagonist’s destructive habits, but the film quickly turns into a deeper inquiry of lacking public resources, and a plea for general reform.
Proibido Proibir was one of my two favorite films of the ones we watched for my Portuguese class this term (the other being Linha de Passe). The film is not only well-made, but also has a great cast. Caio Blat does an incredible job as Paulo–at times he doesn’t even seem to be acting–and the other actors also have solid performances. You will connect with the characters in this film. The storyline is interesting and exciting and picks up a lot in the second half of the film.
This film presents a theme that is central to Brazil’s political history: the oppression of those who speak out against a controlling party. Furthermore “Proibido Proibir” elucidates the futility of those who have historically opposed (or been in bad terms with) the Brazilian police. It was very intriguing to watch the search, or maybe more appropriately labelled, the ‘hunt’ that the police embarked on to eliminate their opposition. Adroit camera shots, such as the selective usage of slow-motion during the panning of dead bodies, helps to build an atmosphere that is well aligned with the hunt. I would recommend this film for someone who is interested in the intersection youth rebellion and police corruption.
This film presents a pervasive life philosophy found in Brazil: prohibited to prohibit, and how it unfolds in the lives of three university students in Sao Paulo. As two best friends fall in love with the same girl, who is already dating one of them, the film demonstrates an interesting love triangle. The love triangle is essentially tested when they end up in the midst of police corruption and brutality in a slum in Brazil. The film does a great job of intersecting the love triangle and police corruption in an attempt to dramatize the plot. Moreover, the film is unique in that it presents lower class Brazil as well as middle class Brazil, and an interaction between the two, something I’ve found to be rare in Brazilian films.