São Paulo and Buenos Aires: Urban Cinematic Representation in Contemporary Latin

Home , Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires Vice Versa, Carancho, Carlos Mugica, Cinema Novo, Crane World

America

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Samuel Cruz

Graduate Program in Spanish and Portuguese

The Ohio State University

2015

Dissertation Committee:

Professor Laura Podalsky, Advisor

Professor Kris Paulsen

Professor Pedro Pereira

Samuel Cruz

2015

Abstract

My project analyzes the filmic representation of São Paulo and Buenos Aires in contemporary Brazilian and Argentine fictional cinema (2002-2012) in the wake of major urban renovations that took place in those cities during that same period in the context of larger neoliberal reforms. It proposes a study of filmic representations of these metropolises during a period of significant political, economic, social, and cultural transformations following an era of dictatorship. In particular, this project explores the degree to which these films offer a contestatory vision of this transformation. The socio- economic charges ushered in by the neoliberal platform both in Brazil and Argentina have intensified many social and infra-structural changes: on the one hand, we see unparalleled growth of the number of favelas and villas miseria while on the other hand there exists the renovation and revitalization of affluent areas seen in the construction of an unequaled number of postmodernist-style buildings. At the same time, unprecedented violence surges in urban areas such as São Paulo and Buenos Aires as a consequence of these political-economic measures. The films analyzed here through transdissciplinary lens evidence social gaps based on class division.

Dedication

To my Father

(In Memoriam)

iii

Acknowledgments

Along the years that I invested in this study, the support of those who made this endeavor possible was crucial. I would like to thank Dina and Felipe, who stood by me during the smoother moments as well as through the many bumps on the road. Distance and proximity have acquired a new meaning. Thank you for your patience, and love. My hope is that all the losses have been worth it.

My parents have always invested in my education. And without their support and love this path would have not been possible. A few months before I finished this dissertation, my father passed away. The pain of absence has never been so cruel! Here is to Manuel and Ester Cruz.

This work would have never happened if it was not for the support, guidance, and perseverance (just to mention a few nouns) of Dr. Laura Podalsky. She is a great professor, a brilliant scholar, the best advisor ever, and, above all, Dr. Podalsky is one of the finest human beings that I have ever met. Throughout these years, Dr. Podalsky has invested her time and believed in me, even when I did not myself. I wanted to thank her for all her patience and support. Words are limited to express my deepest respect for her.

Learning has attained a new meaning.

Vita

2003...... B.A., English, Federal University of Paraná,

Brazil

2010...... M.A. Spanish, Latin American Literatures

and Cultures, The Ohio State University

2008 to present ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department

of Spanish and Portuguese, The Ohio State

University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Spanish and Portuguese

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iii

Acknowledgments...... iv

Vita ...... v

Fields of Study ...... v

Table of Contents ...... vi

List of Figures ...... ix

Introduction ...... 1

Brazilian and Argentine (“new”) Cinema ...... 5

The City ...... 15

The Latin American city ...... 18

The cinema-city nexus ...... 23

The Latin American cinema-city nexus: A Review of the State of Current

Scholarship ...... 25

Theoretical Framework ...... 30

Chapter 1: Brazilian Contemporary Cinema: From the Periphery to Downtown and Back

Home ...... 40

Introduction ...... 40

The Tenants (Don’t Like It, Leave)! Leave to where?...... 45

Urban spatiality...... 46

Entrapment: absence and power differences ...... 48

Urban violence and the politics of representation ...... 57

Linha de Passe ...... 72

From the periphery to the center and back home: forces of attraction and repulsion 74

The (lack of) flow of the material city and its dwellers: a metaphor ...... 81

Internal violence; fluid lives ...... 85

O Invasor ...... 89

Spectatorship and realism ...... 91

Production of space: the differentiation factor ...... 92

Violent acts ...... 105

Chapter 2: Contemporary Argentine Cinema: the Subject and the City ...... 109

Introduction ...... 109

El Bonaerense: a transforming journey in the city ...... 112

The reality of the conurbano ...... 113

vii

Metropolis: subjective prison, social imbalance ...... 124

Elefante Blanco: entrapped in the villa ...... 131

Neo-neorealism and Elefante Blanco ...... 133

Subjective exclusion: church, state, youth...... 142

Medianeras ...... 155

(Post)modern urban space; fragmented urban life ...... 157

Medianeras and the city-film ...... 176

Conclusion ...... 187

Chapter 3: Contemporary Brazilian and Argentine cinema: the (re)construction of São

Paulo and Buenos Aires’s urban imaginary ...... 189

Entrapment, alienating space, and violence: where cinema meets public debate ...... 191

Building the material city ...... 209

Circulating bodies ...... 224

Conclusion ...... 233

Bibliography ...... 239

Filmography ...... 246

Films cited ...... 246

viii

List of Figures

Figure 1.1. Opening shot picturing the favela...... 49

Figure 1.2. Second (dissolve) shot of the favela...... 50

Figure 1.3. Third shot of the first sequence, a dissolve from the previous shot picturing the favela in the foreground and a better equipped residential neighborhood in the foreground...... 57

Figure 1.4. Reginaldo driving the bus...... 88

Figure 1.5. Ivan and his wife in their apartment. A clean, bright interior with fine art and furniture, and whisky on the table defines the elite’s lifestyle...... 93

Figure 1.6. A shot from the scene in which Anísio takes Marina on a driving tour in the periphery (accompanied by an extradiegetic rap song by Sabotage)...... 94

Figure 1.7. Ivan and Giba, in the foreground at the construction site, and Cícero in the middle ground...... 95

Figure 2.1. Zapa sitting in front of a bar with friends in his hometown...... 114

Figure 2.2. This framing underlines the small town as a walkable space...... 115

Figure 2.3. Zapa experiencing the transportation system in Buenos Aires...... 120

Figure 2.4. Entrapment/subjugation shown through the flatness of the shot...... 121

Figure 2.5. Extreme close-up evidencing the captain’s stressful state of mind...... 122

Figure 2.6. Extreme long shot of Zapa back in his hometown, walking to work...... 131

Figure 2.7. Pan shot of the villa...... 138

Figure 2.8. Shot of houses in the villa...... 139

Figure 2.9. Julián at the top of the Elefante Blanco with central Buenos Aires in the background...... 139

Figure 2.10. The priests walking through the villa...... 141

Figure 2.11. One of the young men from the villa comments on the fact that he was abandoned when he was a kid...... 144

Figure 2.12. A shot from the perspective of the young people as they comment about the villa...... 145

Figure 2.13. An external shot of the unfinished building Elefante Blanco...... 153

Figure 2.14. Julián walking inside the building...... 154

Figure 2.15. Central Buenos Aires shot with a telephoto lens. The Obelisc in the center of the shot...... 165

Figure 2.16. Central Buenos Aires evidencing modern-style buildings and the sidewalls.

...... 165

Figure 2.17. Buildings in construction in central Buenos Aires...... 166

Figure 2.18. Glassed-walls building reflecting a modern-style one...... 166

Figure 2.19. An unfinished by-pass...... 167

Figure 2.20. A postmodern building in central Buenos Aires...... 167

Figure 2.21. Menem's 1995 presidential campaign's ad on the sidewall...... 175

Figure 2.22. Martín on the window he opened in his apartment on the sidewall...... 175

Figure 2.23. Martín's and Mariana's apartments and their respective "provisional" windows...... 176

Figure 2.24. Martín's panic attack survival kit displayed on the floor...... 179

Figure 2.25. Woody Allen's Manhattan playing on TV. By the TV, Star Wars’s “The force is with you.” ...... 181

Figure 3.1. Figure 1. The shot portrays Giba in the foreground in one of his company’s construction site in the middle ground, while depicting elite’s style buildings in the background...... 216

Figure 3.2. Workers erecting a building in central Buenos Aires...... 219

Figure 3.3. Overcrowded swimming pool in central Buenos Aires...... 224

Figure 3.4. Cleuza on the bus...... 229

Figure 3.5. Mariana on the bus...... 231

Introduction

My project analyzes the filmic representation of São Paulo and Buenos Aires in contemporary Brazilian and Argentine fictional cinema (2002-2012) in the wake of major urban renovations that took place in those cities during that same period in the context of larger neoliberal reforms. It proposes a study of filmic representations of these metropolises during a period of significant political, economic, social, and cultural transformations following an era of dictatorship.1 In particular, this project explores the degree to which these films offer a contestatory vision of this transformation. The socio- economic charges ushered in by the neoliberal platform both in Brazil and Argentina have intensified many social and infra-structural changes: on the one hand, we see unparalleled growth of the number of favelas and villas miseria while on the other hand there exists the renovation and revitalization of affluent areas seen in the construction of an unequaled number of postmodernist-style buildings. At the same time, unprecedented violence surges in urban areas such as São Paulo and Buenos Aires as a consequence of these political-economic measures.

By comparing three Brazilian films and/to three Argentine ones to governmental initiatives and to public debates about the urban sphere, I analyze the role of

1 In Brazil the last dictatorship period was from 1964 – 1985. In Argentina the dictatorship known as the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional [Process of National Reorganization] went from 1976 – 1983. 1 contemporary films in the (re)construction of a shared urban imaginary of these two cities, exploring the roles of both the state and the market in reconstructing the urban landscape in the era of globalization. Given the prominence of these cinemas as well as the significance of the two cities, the comparison of the Brazilian and Argentine cases provide insightful understanding of the cinema-city relationship in the region.

I am interested in seeing how the “new cinemas” that emerged in the two countries since the mid-1990s took urban life as a major thematic preoccupation while also experimenting with new formal structures for its depiction. This “new cinema” presents a tendency towards formal experimentation (through alternative narrative structures, cinematography, editing, and sound) which relates to the socio-political and material space of their production. My project is interested in urban films produced during this period in order to, among other things, analyze how they portray urban poverty in “peripheral” areas (e.g. the favela and the villa) in relation to “central” spaces of the city (e.g. business districts, plazas) within the larger globalized context – in ways that differ from Latin American films from earlier periods. For instance, Beto Brant’s internationally acclaimed O Invasor (2002) [The Trespasser], offers an innovative representation of the privileged universe of the ruling classes by demonstrating the way in which it is permeated by the ugliness and abjection that surround it through the arrival of a hit man, a “trespasser” from the favela world. Brant also experiments with fast paced editing and the use of diegetic and extradiegetic rap music associated with the acting of the known São Paulo’s rapper Sabotage which helps to tie together the thematic and

2 aesthetic elements of the film. These elements shape a portrayal of the city as a segregated place.

Buenos Aires rather than Rosario or Córdoba for instance has been at the center of the national imaginary for over a century. It is an exciting city that has experienced tremendous growth throughout the twentieth century. The city went through radical transformations in its built environment starting in the early 20th century. It is often referred to as the Paris of South America. As Laura Podalsky points out, “Government efforts to transform the capital city along the lines of Haussmannian Paris by widening several streets into elegant boulevards, creating a municipal park system, and constructing a subway system further positioned Buenos Aires as the central symbol of

Argentina’s modernity” (33). Such positioning has led filmmakers to portray and discuss

Buenos Aires’s material and social identity from the early days of Argentine film production from Adelqui Migliar’s Las Luces de Buenos Aires (1931) to the films of the

Generación del 60 [60s Generation] such as David Kohon’s Buenos Aires (1958) when directors left the studios to film on the streets of Buenos Aires, to more recent productions such as Alejandro Agresti’s Buenos Aires Vice Versa (1996). Mainly these last two examples contrast the modernized Buenos Aires with the villa, the underdeveloped sites of the city. They emphasized the national having Buenos Aires as its metonymic trope as a criticism of developmentalist ideals.

Although from the early decades of last century important films such as Adalberto

Kemeny’s and Rudolf Lustig’s São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole (1929) [São Paulo

Symphony of the Metropolis], following the steps of Ruttmann’s Berlin, The Symphony

3 of a Great City (1927), and later on Luís Sérgio Person’s São Paulo, S.A.(1965) give the city of São Paulo prominence (besides other films that I will mention later), its presence on the screen is much less frequent than that of Rio de Janeiro. David William Foster points out that

[i]t is safe to say that, because of its greater profile in national and international

imaginaries, Rio de Janeiro far surpasses São Paulo in filmic representations,

especially if one insists on a direct correlation between the city and the plot of the

film and not just its presence as a circumstantial locale. São Paulo is an important

venue for Brazilian filmmaking, and it is also the site of many respected film

festivals, including the São Paulo International Film Festival, which dates from

1990. Yet it is undeniable that the presence of São Paulo in Brazilian fiction is not

matched – at least in terms of the central core of Brazilian cinema – by an equal

degree of interest from filmmakers. (82)

Similarly to the earlier Argentine films, these earlier Brazilian films comment on São

Paulo as a site of modernity, depicting its skyscrapers and the fast pace imposed by modern times. Therefore, given its place in the world scenario (economic, cultural, political), a discussion of the filmic representation of the city becomes paramount because of São Paulo’s prominence in the Latin American scene as well as Buenos

Aires’.

Brazilian and Argentine (“new”) Cinema

Although many scholars have written extensively about Brazilian and Argentine cinema giving an account of the events that forged them over the last decades, and more specifically the so-called “new cinemas” that emerged from the mid-1990s onward, I find it important to provide an overview of the characteristics that shaped these cinemas to provide a backdrop for the more focused analysis that I am proposing here. I will first take into consideration changes in the Brazilian and Argentine film industry. In particular, I will offer a summative view of new state policies that emerged in the aftermath of neoliberal reforms due to their importance for film production in both countries. Later on in the cinema-city nexus section I will point more specifically to how these policies influenced the cinema made in São Paulo, as one of the main centers of film production in Brazil, as well as to that produced in Buenos Aires.

Before focusing on the contemporary era I will provide a brief overview of

Brazilian film history in order to establish a temporal continuity and show how Brazilian cinema has developed over the decades. This overview will provide the chapter with important background information that will connect with the development of the ideas related to contemporary cinema. Brazil has been producing films since the end of the nineteenth century and it went through periods of great production. As film production grows, Brazilian production diversifies. Rubens Luis Ribeiro Machado Júnior is a

Brazilian scholar, an architect who is also Professor of Cinema Theory and History in the

Departament of Cinema, Radio and Television at the School of Arts and Communication

5 at University of São Paulo. His study “Imagens Brasileiras da Metrópole – A presença da

Cidade de São Paulo na História do Cinema” [Brazilian Images of the Metropoli – The

Presence of the City of São Paulo in Cinema History] gives a historiographical account of the relationship between the paulista cinema and the city of São Paulo from cinema’s inception until the 1980s. Machado Júnior points out that the first known film to portray a scene of the city dates from 1899.2 The first fictional Brazilian film is “O Diabo” (1908)

[The Devil] by Antônio Campos, who was associated with the Italian actor Alberto

Capozzi and produced two films adapted from literary works, “Inocência” (1916) and “O

Guarani” (1916) the former a novel by Visconde de Taunay and the latter by José de

Alencar. Machado Júnior says that between 1923 and 1933 the production of fictional films doubled in relation to the previous ten years reaching one hundred and fifty films.

From these, fifty were films produced in São Paulo. Robert Stam notes that “The silent era (1898-1930) was the belle époque of Brazilian cinema, when Brazilian films dominated the internal market, reaching an annual production of 100 films a year [sic]”

(59). Stam provides us with great historical overview of the Brazilian cinema detailing the different periods, which is not my purpose here. Filmmakers utilized different types of modes of production, from artisanal to studio modes. In terms of the later, some modes were commercial cinema for mass audiences of Cinédia and Atlântida for instance, and the “art-commercial” efforts of the entrepreneurs behind Vera Cruz. But none of these efforts proved sustainable. Stam points to periods such as the chanchada in the 1930s and

2 Machado Júnior notes that “As primeiras projeções cinematográficas propriamente ditas na cidade de São Paulo teriam ocorrido em 1896, mostrando imagens como a praça da Bastilha em Paris, cães brincando com crianças, o movimento da gare de uma estação ferroviária...” [The first cinematographic projections per se in the city of São Paulo would have occurred in 1896, showing images such as the Bastille square in Paris, dogs playing with kids, the circulation of people at a train station…] (4) 6

1940s, underlining the rise of stars such as Carmen Miranda, and the founding of Vera

Cruz film company entering Brazil in the studio era when the system was declining in

Hollywood. Throughout the more than one hundred years of its history it has created great films such as during Cinema Novo era in the 1960s, to mention just one period, whose most known representative was Glauber Rocha, who directed films such as Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) [Black God White Devil] and Terra em Transe (1967)

[Entranced Earth]. Embrafilme (Empresa Brasileira de Filmes S.A.), a state-funded company for production and distribution of Brazilian films, was created in 1969. This is an example of how the state (even during the dictatorship) showed some interest in promoting domestic film. Nevertheless, such efforts ultimately proved unsustainable once the state income began dropping in the 1980s. Although Brazilian cinema did not stop entirely, its production declined from the 1970s and into the 1980s.

Brazilian cinema went through a severe crisis in the production of fictional features in the 1980s due to the crisis inside Embrafilme. As a consequence, a new generation of filmmakers coming from the production of short films, documentary, and the ones graduating from film schools such as USP’s had a hard time producing feature- length films. The dictatorship and the censorship that accompanied it entering the 1980s were characteristics that helped create a distance between this cinema and that of previous traditions such as the Cinema Novo and the Cinema Marginal. The cinema of the 1980s was characterized as an urban cinema. The Vila Madalena neighborhood in São

Paulo became the center of the production of this cinema, which was marked by a lack of interest in a national culture following the failed over-optimism about the economic

7 miracle of the 1970s. The image of this metropolis was that of the city of work, which never stops and is in constant transformation noticeable in the construction of skyscrapers so characteristic of this city in the Brazilian imaginary.

The 1990s marks another shift in Brazilian film history –particularly in terms of state-private relations. In 1990 President Fernando Collor de Mello (1990 – 1992), the first democratically-elected President in the post-dictatorship era, closed down

Embrafilm. As a consequence local cinema lost its main means of financial support for production; its free-fall bottomed out in the beginning of the 1990s. As noted by Lúcia

Nagib only two feature-length films were released in Brazil in 1992.3 Fernando Collor started implementing neoliberal reforms and introducing measures aligned with the

Washington Consensus such as the opening of the internal market to international investment, until then protected against this kind of external intervention. These measures opened the doors to big distribution and exhibition chains such as Cinemark that began to establish a strong presence in the country and, in the process, hurt local theaters that were not prepared for the market competition.

New federal laws ushered in by the legislature in the mid-1990s were created to foster national cinema production and recuperate the loss of previous years. They were less a dismantling of a state entity and an opening up the distribution and exhibition sectors to foreign competition than an effort to rethink and rework public-private partnerships in support of Brazilian filmmaking (production). The tax incentive law number 8,313 of 1991, known as Rouanet Law, and later the “Lei do Audiovisual”

3 Lúcia Nagib, 2003, p.xvii 8

(Audiovisual Law) of 1993 provided the financial means for the resurgence of the national cinema into what came to be called “Cinema da Retomada” [Rebirth/Retake

Cinema] or, as Jens Andermann and Álvaro Fernández Bravo put it, literally “beginnings- anew” (1).

It was the rebirth of a cinema that had been dismantled and had reached a deep state of coma. In order to establish a birth date for this cinema Carlota Joaquina –

Princesa do Brasil (1995) [Carlota Joaquina – Princess of Brazil], directed by Carla

Camurati is the film that is usually referred to as the one that launched Brazilian cinema into a new period. Carlota attracted a big audience.4 In 1998 Walter Salles released

Central do Brasil [Central Station]. The film received many national and international awards, including Oscar nominations for best foreign film and best actress for Fernanda

Montenegro. Other films achieved great commercial success in the domestic market and attracted international attention as well such as Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s

Cidade de Deus (2002) [City of God]. These were signs not only of the resurgence of national cinema but also of its solidification.

Similar to Brazilian cinema, Argentine cinema has a long history. The first film showings date from the late nineteenth century, right after the first film projections in

Paris.5 In 1896 Federico Steiner started filming Buenos Aires, recording some of the

4 1.286.000 – according to Observatório Brasileiro do Cinema e do Audiovisual – OCA [Brazilian Observatory of Cinema and Audiovisual] Filmes Brasileiros Lançados - 1995 a 2013 [Brazilian Films Released – 1995 to 2013] - oca.ancine.gov.br. 5 César Maranghello notes that “A pocos meses de aquel sábado de 1895, en el que los Lumière sorprendieron con las primeras imágenes de su Cinematographe, Enrique de Mayena trajo a una Buenos Aires cosmopolita la primera cámara que, con el nombre de Vivomatógrafo, exhibió públicamente películas, en un local de Florida 344” (11). 9 city’s sites such as Plaza de Mayo and the city’s daily life. Argentine film production steadily increased over the first decades of the twentieth century when there was an intense interest in filmmaking. Filmmakers started to add narrative to film production following a tendency from some of the major centers. The contrast urban vs. countryside was an important theme from those early moments with films such as Nobleza Gaucha

(1915) achieving huge success. Nonetheless, it did not take long for foreign intervention in the local market to start. As noted by César Marighello, “Fox Film instaló en 1915 la primera filial directa, que fue sustituyendo a los distribuidores locales hasta que el mercado se quedó en manos norteamericanas” (37). [Fox Film in 1915 installed the first direct subsidiary, which was replacing the local distributors until the market remained in

American hands]. And he adds that Argentina was the most important market for US production throughout the 1930s. The period from the 1930s to mid-1940s, when the transition to incorporated sound system took place, was considered the golden age of the

Argentine cinema. ¡Tango! (1932) is considered the film that inaugurates this period

(Maranghello 65). The period also saw the rise of the studio system in Argentina.

Although there was no state incentive, companies such as Cosmos Film, Argentina Sono

Film, Baires Film, and Lumiton (the first big studio) invested in film production following a slow recovery of the economy. Argentine films were being exported to countries such as Brazil, Spain, and the Middle East. Nonetheless, a proper attention to conquer and maintain these and other markets failed. Also, in the early 1940s the US

[A few months after that Saturday in 1895, in which the Lumière surprised with the first images of its Cinematographe, Enrique de Mayenne brought to a cosmopolitan Buenos Aires the first camera with the name Vivomatógrafo that publicly exhibited films in a local 344 Florida St.] 10 reduced celluloid sales to Argentina starting a big local production crisis.6 As I pointed out, the different types of modes of production utilized by filmmakers, from artisanal to studio modes proved unsustainable after given periods. The first Peronist rule started in

June 1946 when Juan Domingo Perón took office. And in 1947 the ley de protección

12.999 was promulgated, starting a period of state intervention in local film production.7

Another governmental measure to protect the internal industry was the Law 62/1957.

After Peron’s rule, Arturo Frondizi took power in 1958 starting a developmentalist period focusing on attracting foreign capital, promoting a phase of modernization. Nonetheless, it was not enough to rescue the local film industry.8 The following decade would witness deep changes in filmmaking. The so-called New Argentine Cinema of the 1960s saw the eruption of aesthetic freshness and an engaged cinema with the Generación del 60 group and, later, filmmakers such as Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, who directed the critically acclaimed La Hora de Los Hornos (1966-1968).

6 Maranghello notes that, “Ese año [1942], el 34 por ciento de la producción exhibida en Latinoamérica provenía del Rio de la Plata. Se utilizó entonces, para boicotear a nuestro cine, la excusa de que el gobierno aún mantenía relaciones con el Eje. Como resultado de aquellas medidas, la producción decendió bruscamente: en 1942, se produjeron 56 películas; y éstas pasaron a 34 en 1943; y apenas a 24 en 1944” (112). [That year [1942], 34 percent of the production exhibited in Latin America came from the Rio de la Plata. With the excuse that the government still maintained relations with the Axis, [the US and other countries began to] boycott our cinema. As a result of those measures, production fell sharply: in 1942, there were 56 films; and they went to 34 in 1943; and just 24 in 1944.] 7 As pointed out by Marighello, “Como resultado de esas políticas, se estrenaron hasta 1956 alrededor de 480 películas, pero no por ello se fortaleció la industria, dado que los productores usufructuaron esas medidas para trabajar con menor riesgo financiero” (114). [As a result of these policies, about 480 movies premiered until 1956, but this did not strengthen industry, since producers made use of these measures to work with less financial risk.] 8 “De los estrenos, hubo en 1958 527 extranjeros y 32 nacionales; un año después, 429 foráneos y 23 argentinos; al siguiente, 430 versus 31. La exhibición, una vez más, se mostró como la mayor enemiga del cine nacional” (Marighello 150) [Of the releases, there were 527 foreign in 1958 and 32 nationals; a year later, 429 foreign and 23 Argentines; the next, 430 versus 31. The exhibition, once again, was the enemy of the national cinema.] 11

Structural parallels between Brazilian and Argentine film history between the

1890s and the 1980s are evident. The long-standing presence of talented filmmakers; the existence of a fairly successful (if economically precarious) commercial industry between the 1940s-1950s; the on-going difficulties of competing with Hollywood; and the relatively inefficiency of state interventions throughout these earlier periods for combating the dominance of Hollywood and European industries are some of the similarities that stand out. And the parallelism continues in the transition from the 1980s to the 1990s.

Social, economic, and political as well as cultural changes are at the core of the turbulent Argentine society in the wake of the implementation of neoliberal restructurings. The late 1970s and the 1980s saw a big decline in the Argentine cinema, which continued into the 1990s. Diego Battle mentions that “At the beginning of the 90s

Argentine cinema was on the verge of extinction. Without finance, either political or private, and with absolute indifference from the public in view of the scarcity of even the unattractive films on offer, national production was almost dead both commercially and artistically.” (17)

This state of quasi-death was achieved through a shrinking process. Diego Battle provides some statistics that show Argentine cinema’s decline. He points out that 3.4 million tickets were sold for the national production Nazareno Cruz y el lobo directed by

Leonardo Favio in 1975; Nazareno was one of several national films that achieved audiences of over two million spectators. Contrastively, all 16 national films released in

1991 were seen by only 1,157,100 spectators; this represented only 7.1% of total market

12 share. In 1992 only ten films were released, and in 1994 eleven Argentine films sold a little over three hundred thousand tickets accounting for only 1.8% of the total sales.

Some of the possible causes for the downfall of the film industry were political repression and an economic crisis that affected both production and the exhibition sector.

During this period Argentina went through a dictatorship process with the instauration of drastic restrictive measures for the cultural industry such as censorship and the reduction of state incentives for cinema production, followed by what came to be called the “lost decade” of the 1980s when inflation skyrocketed. According to Battle the number of theaters went from 2,500 in the mid-1970s to 280 in 1992. It was during the implementation of neoliberal reforms in the Carlos Menem administration (1989 – 1999), such as the opening of the national market to multinational investment and privatization of public companies, that the main international chain cinemas, mostly from the US and

Australia, began to arrive in Argentina such as Cinemark and Hoyts General Cinemas.

Argentine administrations, similar to those in Brazil, utilized tax incentives to stimulate private investment in the film industry. The Menem administration created new film laws to stimulate public-private partnerships (similar to the Collor administration), which helped to boost Argentine film production. In January 1995 Law 24,377 for the

Promotion and Regulation of the National Cinematographic Activity came into effect, which became known as “Cinema Law.”9 And the responsibility for overseeing the

9 Diego Batlle points out that “The central aspect of the Cinema Law… consisted in the amplification of the Promotion Fund (which until then had been 8 million dollars and was automatically raised to over 40 million), when the 10% tax on ticket sales was added a similar duty on the hiring, sale and issue of videos, as well as 25 percent of the earnings the Federal Committee for Radio Broadcasting (COMFER) obtains from the open television channels and cable TV… If some aspects of the new initiatives were never implemented, like the one known as the screen quota (a regulation that also appeared in the preceding Law 13 application of the law was attributed to the Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Visuales –

INCAA [Cinema and Visual Arts National Institute], an autarchy under the Ministry of

Culture.

The promise of state support did not give filmmakers access to unlimited funds – at least in part because the larger economy continued to decline. Economic processes contributed to an unprecedented weakening of the Argentine film production. The

Argentine film industry was heavily affected by the neoliberal reforms implemented in the 1990s. By the end of the 1990s Argentina was under a deep financial crisis.

December 2001 became an iconic year in recent Argentine history. The country was deeply indebted with international organizations such as the IMF – International

Monetary Fund. Fearing fleeing of capital, one of the measures adopted by the government was to freeze all bank accounts, limiting the amount permitted for withdrawing for a period of time. This initiative became known as corralito10. Later on the government paired the Peso to the Dollar.

Eventually the economic situation influenced aesthetic choices as well. The collapse of the Argentine financial system provoked adaptations in filmmaking. As

Joanna Page puts it, due to issues such as the high cost of equipment, filmmakers had to improvise, adapt, and experiment. One of the measures was, for instance, to substitute smaller gauges for 35mm and black and white for color, among other things. The crisis lead the “New Argentine Cinema” to a new wave of aesthetic experimentation and an

17,741 which obliged exhibitors to screen on Argentine film for every six foreign ones), the Cinema Law did produce an immediate revival of the industry” (18-19). 10 Diminutive of the word “corral” in Spanish, alluding to the way people felt about the economic measures adopted by the government. 14 interest in testifying the socio-political issues imposed by the neoliberal reform and its consequences, which, according to critics such as Sergio Wolf, was a turn from the

Argentine cinema from earlier periods, although these filmmakers were indebted to previous generations. Although there were other critically acclaimed films that came up a little before the passing of the Cinema Law, which are representative of a new way of making cinema in Argentina such as Martín Rejtman’s Rapado (1992), critics usually attribute the birth of the New Argentine Cinema, as it came to be called, to Adrián

Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro’s Pizza, Birra, Fasso (1997) [Pizza, Beer, Cigarettes], which was screened for the first time in the Mar del Plata Festival.

The City

The city, this complex entity, has been the focus of thinking of artists and scholars throughout the centuries. It has started to accelerate its great transformations from the nineteenth century onwards through the industrialization processes taking place in Europe and the United States. In 1844 Friedrich Engels talked about the transformations taking place in Manchester, England related to industrialization processes changing not only the material city but most and foremost causing social ones such as class stratification that are felt in contemporary metropolis all over the world in a much larger scale. He says,

“Every great city has one or more slums, where the working-class is crowded together.

True, poverty often dwells in hidden alleys close to the palaces of the rich; but, in general, a separate territory has been assigned to it, where, removed from the sight of the happier classes, it may struggle along as it can.” (19) Baudelaire, Engels’ contemporary,

15 and one of the most compelling poets of the nineteenth century dedicated a great part of his writings to life in the modern capital of that century, Paris. And Walter Benjamin dedicated his largest project to the arcades of Paris often referring to Baudelaire’s insights about life in it, frequently referring to the iconic image of the flanêur.

Baudelaire’s and Benjamin’s works resonate with Engels’s diagnosis –not only in terms of what is represented but also in terms of how the form of their poetry/essays try to articulate about the modern metropolitan experience.

The urban historian Lewis Mumford opens The City in History with the most elementary question about the city: What is the city? Doreen Massey poses the same and other fundamental questions for the purpose of my study. She asks: What makes a city a city? What do they have in common? In de Certeau’s seminal text “Walking in the city,” looking from the top of the World Trade Center, from an unnatural point of view, he sees a sea (waves) of buildings, but at the street level, he adds, there are human relations, stories. Drawing on Mumford, Massey says that “The city may be a personal drama, but it is a social drama. The sheer quality of possible social interactions means that the city becomes a stage for all kinds of stories. Mumford’s main point, then, is that the city like nowhere else brings people together, into a narrative that is simultaneously personal and social.” (17) And she goes on to say that, “The spaces through which we live our lives, and through which the world – and cities – come to be organized are understood as being social products, and social products formed out of the relations which exist between people, agencies, institutions and so forth.” (159) It is what Mumford calls “geographical plexus.” The contrast between the city imagined as the peak of human achievement

16 versus the reality of growing inequalities, offers a point of departure for reflections about it from different perspectives.

People have understood cities and often overlooked or deliberately ignored the way in which they include –perhaps depend upon— socio-spatial marginalization. Robert

Park notes that “Cities, and particularly the great metropolitan cities of modern times… are, with all their complexities and artificialities, man’s most imposing creation, the most prodigious of human artifacts. We must conceive of our cities therefore… as workshops of civilization, and, at the same time, as the natural habitat of civilized man” (cited in

Harvey 1973, 195). Cities, and more specifically the metropolis and megalopolis of our time, are definitely workshops of civilization, but I believe that one of the aspects of the contemporary city that needs to be problematized is the idea that it houses “civilized man.” The same workshop that serves as a creative space for the concretization of dreams and achievement of great endeavors has been unable to meet the most fundamental needs of humanity creating instead great gaps, which seem to be growing wider and wider. The numbers presented by Mike Davis in Plamet of Slums are staggering and demonstrative of this phenomenon. He points out that “… the UN researchers estimate that there were

921 million slum-dwellers in 2001 and more than one billion in 2005: nearly equal to the population of the world when the young Engels first ventured onto the mean streets of St.

Giles and Old Town Manchester in 1844” (23).

Rural-urban migratory patterns (and the coincident rise of impoverished sectors in urban areas) in the late 19th and early 20th century were perhaps even more intense in

Latin America. Throughout the twentieth century cities continued to be the destination of

17 a migratory trend that started to escalate in the nineteenth century, and the twenty-first century witnesses the transposition of a mark never seen before in human history.

Nowadays more than half of humanity lives in cities. This is a global phenomenon that has great implications for the dynamics of cities, mainly in the relationship between dwellers and the material and social spaces.

The Latin American city

São Paulo is 461 years old.11 It is the largest city in South America and has been for a while one of the largest cities across the globe with an urban area of 590mi² and a population of over twenty million people in the larger metropolitan area. The numbers related to the city are always large. Stories about traffic jams that are several hundred kilometers long are ubiquitous in the media, for instance, and its massive concrete and asphalt built structure is impressive and intimidating. Although its population was relatively small12 in the early twentieth century it was already facing a fast industrialization process. This started to transform the city’s spatial arrangement as well as the ways social groups related to each other. Avenida Paulista [Paulista Avenue], for example, today the financial center of Latin America and an iconic area with its many skyscrapers housing financial institutions and many international companies, was in the first decades of the twentieth century a street with houses of the elite related to coffee industry. Segregation was part of the city’s life already at the beginning of the last

11 It was founded on January 25, 1554. 12 Lúcia Sá points out that “With the arrival of large contingents of European immigrants, especially Italians, the population of São Paulo jumped from 30,000 in 1870 to 240,000 in 1900” (12). 18 century, and the city was not well equipped to deal with the influx of new residents.

According to Teresa Caldeira an urban plan took place opening a series of large avenues radiating from the center to the outskirts. She points out that “It required considerable demolition and remodeling of the downtown area, whose commercial zone was renewed and enlarged, stimulating real estate speculation. Consequently, the working classes, who could not afford the increased rents, were driven out” (218).

However, despite already being a modernizing industrial city and having some tall buildings in early twentieth century,13 the appearance of the modern metropolis starts to change faster starting in the second half of the twentieth century. The momentum of the modern growth begins to accelerate in mid-twentieth century as a result of the modernizing aspirations of the Brazilian government during President Juscelino

Kubitschek’s rule (1955 – 1961) and beyond. Kubitscheck ran for president with the slogan "fifty years [of growth] in five," which he kept during his time in office. One of his most famous developmentalist efforts was the construction of the city of Brasília

(inaugurated in 1960), a tremendous architectonic and engineering project based on

CIAM’s (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) guidelines, transferring

Brazil’s capital city from Rio de Janeiro to the central region of the country. It took only three years to build Brasília working round the clock. Teresa Caldeira and James Holston point out that it was based on the “total planning” concept, also a national concept for

Brazilian modernization. This model of city imposes a totality of new urban conditions

“that dissolves any conflict between the imagined new society and the existing one in the

13 “In 1937, the 30-storey-high Edifício Martinelli was inaugurated, to become a landmark in the verticalization of the city” (Sá 14) 19 imposed coherence of total order” (397). Despite the utopic plan envisioned by Niemeyer and others, Brasília did not successfully overcome the types of socio-spatial stratifications that existed in other cities. Commenting on the growth of São Paulo

Caldeira and Holston say the following: “The modern city that emerged was disperse and organized by clear class divisions. The center received improvements in infrastructure and the most obvious symbols of modernity. It was dominated by skyscrapers

(increasingly of modernist design) that multiplied in a matter of a few years from the

1950s on and gave the city its contemporary identity” (400). Caldeira and Holston also point out that although there was as much construction in the periphery as in central areas there was not any kind of state support, investment, and planning, which generated a very different type of space.

Kubitschek was also responsible for other types of developmentalist projects – most notably, encouraging foreign investment in the auto industry in Brazil—that had a profound effect on the nation’s existing cities. São Paulo was the city where the auto industry (Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, among others) and all major international organizations that came along with it began to massively settle from the mid-1950s onward. The new arrivals were mostly located in a part of the urban area that came to be known as the ABC14. These changes required proper infrastructure to realize capitalist requirements such as a more complex road systems with the creation of highways. As a result of the huge demand for labor, the city attracted rural migrants that came mainly from the northeastern area of the country, who settled mostly in the

14 Initial letters of three cities’ names: Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, and São Caetano do Sul. And later on a D, standing for the city of Diadema, was added. 20 periphery and further transformed the scenario of São Paulo, which had been characterized up until that point as a city of (mostly) European immigrants. It started to grow quickly by expanding horizontally but also vertically, transforming the cityscape into what came to be known as forest of stone. These transformations intensified the city’s segregational patterns.

By the 1980s, the developmentalist project for modernizing the country had deteriorated. The “lost decade,” as it came to be known affected the metropolitan area of

São Paulo and as a result of the economic crisis the distribution of wealth that was already uneven worsened and social mobility decreased even further. According to

Caldeira and Holston, “The number of people living in favelas in the city increased from

4 percent in 1980 to 19 percent in 1993” (403). Neoliberal reforms were under way in the early 1990s, mainly during Collor’s rule, to resolve the problems left by a failed developmentalist project. As a consequence, the government sold off most of the state- owned utility companies such as the telephone and electricity ones through a strong privatization process in order to pay state debt with institutions such as the World Bank contracted during the developmentalist era.

Buenos Aires is one of the largest cities in Latin America. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first it has been transformed into a large metropolis and cultural center. The seeds lay in the late nineteenth century when Torcuato de Alvear laid out his careful design for a modern city. As urban historians Adrian Gorelik and

Graciela Silvestri note, "The expansion envisioned by Alvear in 1880 was not so much a

21 product of territorial ambition as it was of the objective to surround the city with great reserves of public green spaces, which could hygienically accommodate the public services of a modern, though small and compact, city" (429). Driven by modernization processes, the city grew beyond the nineteenth-century city limits. Walking through the streets of Buenos Aires in the 21st century one can admire the grandeur of its architecture as well as some of its major iconic sites such as the Obelisk and the Avenida 9 de Julio, whose width demonstrates the city’s aspiration of grandeur.

These are some marks of a modern and constantly growing metropolis. They were developed in 1936 under the command of architect Alberto Prebisch, after a long discussion about the future of the city during the thirties. These discussions even received recommendations from Le Corbusier after his visit to the city in 1930. These efforts at urban renovation would be interrupted during the first Peronist administration (1946-

1955), and then resume again in the late 1950s.

After the overthrow of Perón (1955), President Arturo Frondizi (1958 – 1962) implemented a developmentalist policy. His program invested heavily in industrialization, including the automobile industry, fostering consumerism, and investments in Buenos Aires’ built infrastructure. Speaking of urban accumulation processes David Harvey notes, "Whatever else it may entail, the urban process implies the creation of a material physical infrastructure for production, circulation, exchange and consumption." (32) Like São Paulo, Buenos Aires saw a great investment in material physical infrastructure in the 1960s, more specifically in the construction sector. Laura

Podalsky points out that although not at the same level of transformations that took place some decades earlier, the city witnessed an eruption of buildings in this period (12).

The 1980s and 1990s in Argentina were marked by deep economic instability and changes. The “lost decade” was characterized by high inflation whereas, as I pointed out, during the Menem’s administration in the 1990s there was an attempt to stabilize the economy adopting neoliberal measures such as the privatization of public companies and opening the internal market to international investment. As I will discuss later, this lead to changes in Buenos Aires built environment and social practices.

The socio-economic and political transformations that have affected São Paulo and Buenos Aires over the last decades have been thematically explored by cultural productions, more specifically cinema.

The cinema-city nexus

Cinema has been closely associated with the urban since its inception and this relationship has recently attracted more attention. As pointed out by David Clarke,

“Indeed, whilst the histories of film and the city are imbricated to such an extent that it is unthinkable that the cinema could have developed without the city, and whilst the city has been unmistakably shaped by the cinematic form, neither film nor urban studies has paid the warranted attention to their connection.” (1) This relationship is evidenced in some of the now classic films such as Walther Ruttmann’s “Berlin: Symphony of a Great

City” (1927), and Dziga Vertov’s “Man With a Movie Camera” (1929) to cite a few examples. A more focused interest in the study of the nexus cinema-city began to emerge

23 mainly from the 1980s onwards as this relationship provides a rich avenue for investigation and discussion of key socio-economic, political, and cultural issues. Such interest has brought together scholars from fields as diverse as Cultural Studies, Urban

Studies, Geography, Architecture, Film Studies, and Visual Culture to discuss important thematic and formal topics related to this cultural and social relationship.

Film scholars such as Mark Shiel have contributed significantly to the research of the relationship between the cinema and the city. Shiel has written and edited substantial works on the topic. His anthology Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a

Global Context (co-edited with Tony Fitzmaurice) (2001) focuses on American and

European films and cities examining the relationship between cinema and urban societies in the late twentieth century. In that book Shiel characterizes cinema “as something which never ceases to intervene in society, and which participates in the maintenance, mutation, and subversion of systems of power” (4). The book explores the way in which particular films and film practices participate in and/or contest/subvert globalized capitalism. The articles go beyond analyzing particular films (i.e., how they represent the cityscape) to look at other issues such as exhibition practices and/or movie-going practices. This collection of essays also points out that addressing the cinema-city nexus corroborates the view held by a large number of social scientists including David Harvey that the city is the fundamental unit of the new global system that has emerged since the

1960s. However, as I pointed out, the focus of these contributions is mostly directed towards US and European cinemas and cities.

Other cinemas have turned their attention to this relationship as well. As part of a dynamic global system, Asia not only has some of the largest urban areas in the world but

Asian cinemas are among the most prolific worldwide. The implications of tremendous growth in urban areas in Asia are great and the contemporary cinemas of India, China, and Japan have been preoccupied with urban life. Yomi Braester and James Tweedie’s edited volume Cinema at the city’s edge: film and urban networks in East Asia (2010) includes a series of essays that investigate the chaotic and fragmentary nature of East

Asian cities and their relationship with cinema. The book explores the Asian city film in relation to what the authors call “the edge.” As cities crop up at a fast pace in the region, socio-economic and infra-structural issues are of vital importance particularly for communities in slums located beyond the cities’ outskirts.

The Latin American cinema-city nexus: A Review of the State of Current Scholarship

Given the importance of the region, the socio-spatial transformations occurring in São

Paulo and Buenos Aires in recent years have been the subject of studies by Latin

Americanists from the social sciences (particularly anthropology), yet when compared to studies done in the US and elsewhere they have paid little attention to how far the city has been shaped by the cinematic form, and how much cinema owes to the development of urban space. Likewise, the attention paid to the incredible renaissance of Brazilian and

Argentine cinemas in the contemporary period by scholars such as Lúcia Nagib, Robert

Stam, Gonzalo Aguilar, Joanna Page, and Jens Andermann has not paid sufficient attention to the the cinema-city nexus -despite the recurrent preoccupation with the city

25 and urban life by contemporary filmmakers in those countries. Although there are exceptions, which I will discuss later, when scholars have analyzed urban films from these countries, they do not usually relate those urban films to larger socio-economic and political dynamics.

The works that do exist on urban cinema in Argentina and Brazil tend to be narrower in scope and focus more on representational issues; in other words, from a different and less in-depth perspective than that proposed by my study. Many of these studies analyze contemporary Argentine films. Jens Andermann’s New Argentine Cinema

(2012), for instance, does include a chapter on urban films called “Locating crisis: compositions of the urban” analyzing Buenos Aires in relation to its social crisis.

Catherine Leen’s article “City of Fear: Reimagining Buenos Aires” (2008) presents an overview of some of the main urban films from the mid-1990s onward, providing a general analysis and giving an overview of the historical trajectory of urban films about

Buenos Aires of films such as La historia oficial (1985), from the era of

“redemocratization,” up to Pizza, Birra, Faso (1998); and Nueve Reinas (2000), associated with the New Argentine Cinema. Her study gives a somewhat cursory account of the relationship between these films and existing social conditions such as the hardships of the neoliberal era.

In her article “Nine Queens: A Dark Day of Simulations and Justice” (2005),

Gabriela Copertari addresses socio-political issues that informed the making of Nueve

Reinas (2000), one of the biggest box-offices hits of Argentine cinema. She touches on the neoliberal reforms that shaped the future of the Argentine economy and the

26 coincident promise of globalization as a backdrop for her textual analysis focusing, for instance, on the film’s mise-en-scène. According to her, the film presents Buenos Aires as a global metropolis through the depiction of places such as the Esso gas station and the international hotel located in a renovated area of the city, which are symbols of the nation’s entrance into the First World. Like Leen, Copertari’s study does not provide an analysis of the relationship of the film with more specific material and social changes as I propose to do.

There are other works that explore the relationship of cinema to the city in a similar vein taken by my study but do so by focusing on another historical period. For example, in her book Specular City: Transforming Culture, Consumption, and Space in

Buenos Aires, 1955-1973 (2004) Laura Podalsky analyzes the connections between film and the physical changes taking place in Buenos Aires. One of the questions she addresses in her work is how filmic representations of this city register the emergence of a new urban imaginary. Her book uses a broader corpus by focusing on literature and advertising as well as on film. While offering a model for how to move beyond the analysis of representations, her study does not analyze the contemporary period.

Moreover, it does not take a comparative study of two cities in two different South

American countries as my study does.

Alberto Chamorro’s book Argentina, Cine y Ciudad: El espacio urbano y la narrativa fílmica de los últimos años (2011) proposes to expand on Podalsky’s book by analyzing in a more focused way the contemporary Argentine cinema and its relationship with urban space. Although Chamorro’s work offers an interdisciplinary approach similar

27 to mine, it not only analyzes different films (Pizza, birra, faso; Fuga de cerebros; Buenos

Aires vice versa; La deuda interna; Bolivia; Vagón fumador) but focuses exclusively in the Argentine case.15

There has been a similar interest in the preoccupation with urban landscape in scholarship on contemporary Brazilian cinema. Lúcia Nagib is one of the most important

Brazilian film scholars, and she has written extensively and edited many volumes on

Brazilian cinema addressing a myriad of issues. In her edited volume The New Brazilian

Cinema (2003), some of the texts talk about the favela, which has become a ubiquitous trope in recent urban films. However, they do not address how the films relate to specific material changes such as the growth of favelas. In Brazil on Screen: Cinema Novo, New

Cinema, Utopia (2007), Nagib addresses the theme of the utopia in Brazilian cinema.

One of the films she (briefly) analyzes is O Invasor (2002), which is in my filmography.

However, she is not interested in exploring how the film participates in the reconstruction of the contemporary urban imaginary.

Among the exceptions that take into consideration the city-cinema nexus, more specifically the cinema made in São Paulo is the Brazilian scholar Rubens Luiz Ribeiro

Machado Júnior. As I pointed out earlier, Machado Júnior offers a great overview of

Brazilian cinema since its inception. He notes that the more recent Brazilian cinema of the end of the 1960s saw the emergence of Cinema Marginal, also known as Cinema da

Boca [Cinema of the Mouth] or Cinema do Lixo [Cinema from the Garbage] because people related to this cinema used to hang out in the Boca do Lixo [Garbage’s Mouth]

15 Besides, his work also offers a look into the filmic representation of Argentina’s countryside. 28 region in São Paulo where there were located companies that commercialized films in the city. Machado Júnior points out that the expression Cinema do Lixo obviously also indicates an important characteristic of these films that was to focus on the deterioration of the city. This cinema can be thought of as a reaction to the cultural situation lived in the country from 1964 – 1968 along the lines of the tropicália movement. One of the main references of this cinema was Ozualdo Candeias being A Margem (1967) [The

Margin], which characters represent society’s outcasts who walk near the Tietê river. One of the great representatives of this period is Rogério Sganzerla, and his film O Bandido da Luz Vermelha (1968) [The Red Light Bandit] one of the most innovative of its time.

Functioning as an allegory of Brazil, O Bandido is immersed into the urban scene, presenting different locales of São Paulo and an unequal modernization of the urban and the importance of the media. Machado Júnior points out that “Só os meios de comunicação permitem a fruição anárquica desta nova cidade e a São Paulo de Sganzerla parece uma fermentação luxuriante e avacalhada dessa nova sensibilidade do urbano.”

(87) [Only the media allow an anarchic fruition of this new city and Sganzerla’s São

Paulo is a lush and messy fermentation of this new urban sensibility.]

As I have pointed out Machado Júnior’s studies offer an extraordinary historic overview of the relationship of cinema and the city of São Paulo throughout the twentieth century. Nevertheless the period it analyzes is previous to what I propose to do and it does not propose to make an in-depth analysis of particular films nor does he do a comparative study as I propose to do in my study. Therefore, the significance of my project for the field lies in offering an in-depth look into the region through the lens of

Brazilian and Argentine contemporary city films taking into consideration broader socio- economic and political issues in the aftermath of a turbulent period of dictatorship and the installation of neoliberal rule in both countries. It seeks to contribute to the aforementioned contemporary debate and to establish a dialogue between the scholarship being carried out in the US and Europe and the studies of Latin Americanists.

Theoretical Framework

My project will take an interdisciplinary approach. I will be drawing on the theoretical propositions and methods of analysis of different disciplines, such as cultural studies, film studies, urban studies, and human geography. I turn to urban studies and human geography because I am interested in the interface between space, economic structures, and social change. My study takes on cultural studies because this field offers valuable input on the close relationship between cinema as a cultural field and social, political, and material changes in urban spaces. Abril Trigo points out in the general introduction of

The Latin American Cultural Reader that, “Latin American cultural studies focus on the analysis of institutions, experiences, and symbolic productions as intricately connected to social, political, and material relations, relations to which these elements in turn contribute.” (4) This perspective adequately summarizes the dynamics that my project on the city-cinema nexus hopes to illuminate. From the field of film studies, I draw the analytical tools that recognize the specificity of the medium and its relationship with socio-cultural dynamics, most specifically the relationship of film to urban spaces.

Let me now turn to a more detailed discussion of how the theoretical contributions of urban studies and human geography will help me discuss the challenges facing the contemporary urban experience in São Paulo and Buenos Aires today given economic re-structuring of capitalism in the aftermath of neoliberalism and the social changes related to this experience. Henri Lefebvre’s work is relevant for my project for his focus on modes of production of space. Given some of the characteristics of the cities

I will be analyzing, such as the enormous material growth faced by them over the last decades and the increasing fragmentation of their urban spatiality, his theoretical input on material and social space play a fundamental role in my study. In his seminal work The

Production of Space (1971) Lefebvre argues that space is a social product, or a complex social construction based on values, and the social production of meanings that affects spatial practices and perceptions. He also states that in addition to being a site of production, the city is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power. Given the spatial transformations occurred in São Paulo and Buenos Aires in the last two decades, his framework allows me to think conceptually about the “production of space” not only in material terms (i.e. in terms of the transformation of built environments and everyday urban practices), but also in terms of how the filmic representation of urban space (in particular ways) might shape people’s understanding of their surroundings.

As I pointed out earlier, Brazil and Argentina were profoundly impacted by neoliberal reforms in the aftermath of a dictatorship era. As these countries’ and South

America’s most important cities, São Paulo and Buenos Aires have experienced the material as well as social implications of such actions. At the material level, these cities

31 have witnessed the abandonment of public areas, the revitalization of others as well as the promotion of urban fragmentation through the creation of wealthy enclaves. The gentrification of downtown Buenos Aires is an example of this. The Plaza de Mayo (as a space of public demonstrations) became less important as a shared space given the renovation of the Puerto Madero area with its upscale apartments and restaurants that served a more privileged sector of the city’s population. Similar transformations have occurred in São Paulo with the development of the Berrini area attracting international companies to the area, and the construction of upscale residential and commercial buildings. These material changes reflect social, economic, and political transformations fostered by neoliberal reforms. These reforms had consequences on the national economies and the social structure such as massive unemployment, escalating impoverishment, and detrimental distribution of wealth. Given this context, the studies of neo-Marxist geographers David Harvey and Edward Soja become important for my project for their contribution on the role of space in late capitalist society, space being conceptualized in a wide range of possibilities, from material to social and political viewpoints. In his book A brief history of neoliberalism (2005) David Harvey offers a historical and theoretical overview of neoliberalism’s implementation and its social, political, and economic consequences. He points out that as a theory of political and economic practices, neoliberalism proposes, among other things, strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. He also says that “Neoliberalization has not been very effective in revitalizing global capital accumulation, but it has succeeded remarkably well in restoring, or in some instances […] creating, the power of an economic elite.” (19) As

32 noted earlier, the material and social polarization of cities driven by elite power can be seen in Buenos Aires and São Paulo, and the issue becomes the subject of, for instance,

Elefante Blanco and O Invasor, which depict the polarization of social classes in Buenos

Aires and São Paulo. Thus, Harvey’s study serves to theoretically inform and help structure my project as I seek to examine to what extent Brazilian and Argentine urban cinema critique the influence of neoliberalism in shaping the material as well as social, political, economic, and cultural life of these two cities.

Edward Soja’s studies on spatial justice and postmodern geographies offer significant input for my research as well because they provide substantial empirical observations and theoretical contributions on urban practices and structural changes that have happened to Los Angeles – the focus of his work and an interesting point of comparison with São Paulo and Buenos Aires. Like Harvey, Soja argues that the political organization of space reflects the ways in which human spatial interaction is structured to fulfill economic functions. He has greatly contributed to the understanding of the social and political urban space and their relationship to spatial justice through his empirical analysis of the transformation of Los Angeles. He describes the topographic and socio- spatial formation of the city showing a fragmented and segregated region. And its postmodern character is revealed in the fragmentation of this geographical and social space, one that congregates ethnic pockets and pseudo SoHo areas. This provides an example of how urban organization facilitates a depoliticization of the population (who are separated from the center). His analysis provides an interesting analogy for the types of changes that have been visible in Latin American cities. While Los Angeles may

33 epitomize the “postmodern city,” Soja’s analysis is useful for the study of São Paulo and

Buenos Aires because they have witnessed a similar spatial fragmentation. Soja also suggests that, “In their appropriate interpretive contexts, both the material space of physical nature and the ideational space of human nature have to be seen as being socially produced and reproduced. Each needs to be theorized and understood, therefore, as ontologically and epistemologically part of the spatiality of social life” (120). Despite his own emphasis on the material city, Soja nonetheless recognizes the importance of the discursive register for shaping people’s perspectives on urban life. Furthermore, as my project seeks to analyze how Brazilian and Argentine urban films depict these two cities comparing them with discursive analysis and material changes, Soja’s work contribute to illuminate my approach.

Whereas Lefebvre, Harvey, and Soja focus on structures, Michel de Certeau utilizes the concepts of “strategy” and “tactics” to underscore the interface between structures and the practices of everyday life. De Certeau links strategies with institutions and structures of power that are the "producers," while individuals are "consumers" acting in environments by using tactics. He asserts that "the city" is, in part, generated by the strategies of governments, corporations, and other institutional bodies who describe the city as a unified body and the tactics of its inhabitants. As noted earlier in his book

Practice of everyday life, he uses the vantage from the World Trade Center in New York to illustrate the idea of a unified view as defined by institutional strategies. By contrast, the walker at street level moves in ways that are tactical and never completely determined by institutional bodies, taking shortcuts in spite of the strategic grid of the streets. This

34 illustrates De Certeau's argument that everyday life works by a process of poaching on the territory of others, using the rules and products that already exist in culture in a way that is influenced, but never wholly determined, by those rules and products. De Certeau also argues that in the activity of re-use lies an abundance of opportunities for ordinary people to subvert the rituals and representations that institutions seek to impose upon them. Individuals, or “consumers,” through everyday activities such as walking in the city, can reappropriate space and transform it in something else. De Certeau’s study on everyday life activities related to the urban fabric is useful for my project as I seek to see if the films I will be analyzing function as a type of “tactical” re-presentation of the

“institutional” city and/or if they may have influenced audiences’ understanding of the city and thus their own “tactics.”

If the theoretical contributions of disciplines such as urban studies, and human geography are extremely valuable for my study, drawing from film studies will be essential for an in-depth study of my object of analysis. The “new cinemas” that rose in the 1990s in Brazil and Argentina have generated a wealth of scholarly work. But as I have pointed out this period needs to be studied from the point of view of urban cinema, in order to understand how cinema has influenced the ways in which we perceive, understand and use the built environment, and how the built environment has affected the organization and shape of cinema practices. Therefore, my project will not only benefit from the discipline of film studies but it will be informed by the effervescent research conducted over the last decades on urban cinema by many scholars.

As I have noted priviously, Mark Shiel has written extensively about the relationship between cinema and urban societies. His work encourages us to examine particular elements of film style such as mise-en-scène and cinematography (especially framing; use of shallow or deep focus; composition) that shape film’s depiction of

(urban) space. Shiel also draws on the works of scholars such as Fredric Jameson and

Saskia Sassen in order to study the relationship of cinema and urban societies in the globalized world. In his edited book Screening the City (2003) he points out that “the historical relationship between modernity and postmodernity has actually played itself out most clearly in spatial terms – both in an objective sense in terms of complex series of social and economic developments felt most acutely in major cities, and in a mediated sense, in the representation of such cities by cinema.” (164) He discusses the ways in which cinema operates both as an articulation and an intervention of the transformations of urban spaces such as New York City and Los Angeles. Therefore, his scholarships on city-films serve as a productive model for my own project as I look to map similar dynamics in the cases of São Paulo and Buenos Aires and their cinematic representation.

My primary approach will be textual analysis, paying particular attention to formal experimentation and its role in capturing/critiquing the socio-spatial transformations resulting from the neoliberal rule. In chapter one I analyze the three

Brazilian films according to what I am calling a periphery-center axis. I will be analyzing three films that provide diagnoses of the relationship between the marginal(ized) areas of the city and its centers of power. The chapter explores the representation of São Paulo

36 starting with Os Inquilinos (Sergio Bianchi, 2009). In my analysis I identify entrapment as an important theme, particularly in relation to the working class neighborhood where the main characters live, which also renders a depiction of the favela offering a point of comparison and contrast with the working class lifestyle. I then turn to Linha de Passe

(Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, 2008). Whereas Bianchi’s film provided a highly circumscribed perspective on urban life as experienced in one particular neighborhood,

Salles and Thomas’s film places fluidity as a central theme. Linha explores the city from the point of view of the working class and the peripheral city space. At the same time the film offers incursions into more affluent areas of the city as well as into the world of the middle-upper class through the main characters’ centrifugal movements into that sphere.

Finally I arrive at O Invasor (Beto Brant, 2002). In contrast to the previous films, Brant’s narrative is structured to privilege the perspective of “the center,” even while the film offers an eviscerating critique of its corruption.

Chapter two offers a look into the three contemporary Argentine films from the standpoint of the subject and its relationship with Buenos Aires. The films chosen take into consideration the importance of Pablo Trapero’s films in the Argentine film scene and the prevalence that Buenos Aires has in them. While Trapero’s work is somewhat representative of the urban critiques of other filmmakers like Adrián Caetano, Gustavo

Taretto’s film provides a counter example –one that emphasizes the lives of the middle classes in a more commercially palatable manner. Thus, this corpus proves to be fertile ground for an analysis of contemporary Argentine urban cinema. I start with El

Bonaerense (Pablo Trapero, 2002) analyzing its main character’s relationship with the

37 metropolis arguing that the film’s structure –following Zapa’s travels as he moves from a small town, then goes to the metropolis, and then back to his original point-- provides a contrastive way of looking at Buenos Aires. Stressing this contrast, the film critiques the effects that the big city, its built and social environment, has on Zapa’s subjectivity. I then turn to Elefante Blanco (Pablo Trapero, 2012) with two main objectives in mind. I primarily analyze how the film depicts the villa and its dwellers` as well as non-dwellers’ relationship with it. I am interested in how the film portrays how spatial and social interrelations shape the characters’ sense of being. Secondly, the ten-year span between the two films allows for a contrastive and comparative look into Trapero’s oeuvre in relation to his approach to the city both as a social critique and also from an aesthetical point of view. I finally direct my attention to Medianeras (2011). Tarettos’s film touches on many aspects related to the contemporary material Buenos Aires as well as the relationship that its dwellers have with it. In contrast to Trapero`s films, the film portrays

Buenos Aires from the point of view of the middle class, which serves as a socio- economic complement to the chapter’s look into class differences. I offer a look into some of the aspects discussed by the film, chiefly the built environment, due to the extensive depiction of the city’s material composition, and the direct and indirect references the film makes to urban cinema such as its references to Jacques Tati and

Woody Allen.

In chapter three I bring these two cinemas together interweaving them through similar thematic approximations in order to analyze their role in the (re)construction of the urban imaginary. Also, the use of secondary studies like those of Holston and

Caldeira, well-known anthropologists that have written extensively on São Paulo, as well as those of Adrian Gorelik, an important urban scholar of Buenos Aires, play an important role to identify the most significant changes that occurred in both cities and to understand how those changes were understood by urban scholars.

My project seeks to, among other things, add to extant scholarship on urban cinemas to suggest what Latin American cinemas do differently. In doing so, the project’s goal is also to contribute to thickening scholarship on the socio-cultural impact on contemporary Argentine and Brazilian cinema. My purpose is to amplify the dialogue between Latin American urban cinema and the urban cinema of other regions in an era when global issues assume ever more prominence over the local, since the local, more specifically the metropoli analyzed in my project and the respective local cinemas, are, to a certain extent, inserted in the globalized world.

Chapter 1: Brazilian Contemporary Cinema: From the Periphery to Downtown and Back

Home

Introduction

In this chapter I analyze three acclaimed Brazilian contemporary films and their representation of the city of São Paulo: Sergio Bianchi’s Os Inquilinos (2009), Walter

Salles and Daniela Thomas’ Linha de Passe (2008), and Beto Brant’s O Invasor (2002).

These films offer avenues to explore larger socio-economic and political issues related to this urban space as well as possibilities to discuss aesthetic changes in recent Brazilian cinema. I have chosen to organize my analysis according to a geographical-topographic axis –that is, by tracing the ways that all three films map the relationship between different neighborhoods and, more specifically, highlight the duality of center versus periphery.

I argue that the three films chart and make visible socio-economic and political tensions in the city. They reproduce the socio-spatial divisions that create symbolic and material urban elements such as the favela. The films do that underlining class differentiation in these cities, in some cases showcasing an isolated class, socially and geographically, while in others paralleling them to stress distinction. Despite these

40 similarities, the tenor of the films’ critique of socio-spatial stratification varies from a more acid tone as in Bianchi’s film to a more humanizing one seen in Salles’ and

Thomas’ as well as Brant’s. For example, Bianchi does not see a solution for the social problems he critiques in his film; in the end, the “lower” classes continue to be dominated. Salles and Thomas’s film, on the other hand, shows that there is hope.

I find Os Inquilinos a more cutting critique on the socio-spatial order. I start my study exploring Os Inquilinos because it is totally set in a peripheral area of São Paulo offering only a glance from a distance of the central and better equipped area of the city. I argue that the film uses composition, framing and camera movement as well as the mise- en-scène to build a sense of social entrapment in order to critique larger socio-economic and political issues. Although Os Inquilinos centers its narrative on a working class family and elite sectors are not directly represented, hegemonic discourses about the periphery play a fundamental role in the film’s portrayal of class relations. This is done for instance through the representation of violence in other media such as television and literature in multiple scenes that showcase their affect on Valter and other characters from peripheral neighborhoods. Os Inquilinos also offers a discussion of the question of spectatorship. The film addresses different perspectives through which the film critiques the role of the spectator. This discussion occurs, for instance, through the inclusion of scenes in which people are passive viewers not only of televisual spectacles, but also of practices of everyday life.

Following the topographical axis of analysis, the next section turns to Linha de

Passe which also portrays working-class family dynamics in peripheral São Paulo –in

41 this case, placing particular attention on the neighborhood’s underdeveloped infrastructure. Yet, unlike Bianchi’s film, Salles and Thomas’s work offers incursions into the city’s affluent neighborhoods allowing for an ample comparison of the material differences between center and periphery –for example, via compositions that contrast the center’s verticality (embodied in dominating skyscrapers that serve as a metonym for São

Paulo’s modernization) with the horizontal periphery and its profound lack of infrastructure. I propose an analysis of the film that I will call fluidity. The film explores this theme through motifs such as transportation and communication lines; and in the organization of the plot that follows particular characters (particularly Cleuza) as they circulate within the city.

The last section of the chapter turns to O Invasor. The film focuses its depiction of São Paulo on the portrayal of the affluent and their space in order to make a critique of dominant power. The dichotomy center periphery is present but centralized in the perspective of the elite, characterized by businessmen. As did the previous two films, O

Invasor offers a socio-economic and political critique of São Paulo. The differences between the two are aesthetic as well as in the way the two films address elite power discourse. If in Os Inquilinos it is only hinted at, O Invasor addresses similar thematic issues by including elite’s presence in its portrayal of urban violence and its material and social imbalances.

The three films I am analyzing demonstrate the differences in the approaches of the three filmmakers towards similar themes. Bianchi’s so-called Cinema Faca (Knife

Cinema) refers to his subtle, yet vicious indictment of dominant society, as thoroughly

42 corrupt and unable to solve endemic social problems that affect the working class disproportionately. In his earlier films, Bianchi’s political project led to aesthetic experimentation –for example, in allowing characters to speak directly to the spectator and implicate him/her in the problems displayed on screen (as in Cronicamente Inviável

(2000) [Chronically Unfeasible]. In Os Inquilinos Bianchi inevitably uses his acid criticism, but this time within a more conventional aesthetic than his previous films. As he puts it,

Cansei de fazer panfleto, apesar de achar que foi necessário. Era a única forma de

dizer o que queria. Eu queria fazer um cinema mais clássico, mais narrativo

mesmo. Queria trabalhar com atores, e ao mesmo tempo, falar das contradições

do Brasil como sempre falei, de praticar a minha doença ideológica.... Mas pelo

ponto de vista das pessoas comuns, a grande maioria na periferia.”16

[I'm tired of doing pamphlet, although I think it was necessary. It was the only

way to say what I wanted. I wanted to do a more classical cinema, more focused

on the narrative. I wanted to work with actors, and at the same time, talk about the

contradictions of Brazil as I always said, to practice my ideological disease.... But

from the point of view of ordinary people, the vast majority in the periphery]

Walter Salles is known for his somewhat milder, more humanist critique of social problems common to Brazilian society present in films such as Central do Brasil (1998)

[Central Station]. This humanist approach is clear in his partnership with Daniela

16 O Estado de São Paulo, Section Caderno 2, first page. 2/25/2010. 43

Thomas, with whom he co-directed Terra Estrangeira (1996) [Foreign Land] as well as

Linha de Passe. In all of these films, Salles tried to distinguish his work from other films like Cidade de Deus (2002) [City of God] and Tropa de Elite (2007) [Elite Squad] that seemed to foreground violent acts. As Salles mentions in an interview for a Brazilian newspapaer, “Procuramos fazer um filme diferente sobre a periferia de uma cidade brasileira… Sem tiros, sem tráfico de drogas.” [We tried to make a different film about the periphery of a Brazilian city… Without gunfire, without drug trafficking.] Character- centered explorations are central to Salles’s aesthetic, as he noted about his desire to make, “um filme sobre personagens que tenham tridimensionalidade, conflitos e, mais importante, um olhar original sobre o mundo com o qual se defrontam.”17 [a film about characters that are three-dimensional, that have conflicts and, more importantly, an original view about the world with which they are confronted.] In the end, if Salles’s films do not foresee the facile resolution of major problems, there is at least hope for the future, a feature not present in Bianchi’s oeuvre.

Brant who, like Salles/Thomas and unlike Bianchi, is a more commercial director

(as evident in the way his films toy with the conventions of suspense and the thriller), likes to experiment; as he says, “O bacana é poder experimentar.” [The nice thing is to be able to experiment.]18 He does it in O Invasor in two scenes in which the characters speak/look direct to the spectator as a way to implicate the audience.

17 Folha de São Paulo, Section Ilustrada, page E3, Cannes Festival, 4/24/08. 18 O Estado de São Paulo, Caderno 2, page D5, 2/12/2010. 44

The Tenants (Don’t Like It, Leave)! Leave to where?

Os Inquilinos builds a net of correlations that unfold to discuss the social and material implications of living entrapped in and by the hardships of a huge metropolis. It is set entirely in the city’s outskirts and privileges the perspectives of those who live there – particularly that of Valter, who works loading boxes of fruits at a fruits and vegetables warehouse, and his family. The narrative foregrounds their experience of the precariousness of urban life, most notably the seemingly constant threat of violence, and lack of the right to the city. It also draws attention to the power of hegemonic discourses that associate the peripheral/marginal urban space with certain class and racial discourses.

More specifically by placing Valter’s experiences at the center of the narrative, the film shows us the degree to which his perceptions of his surroundings are influenced by hegemonic discourses about the urban environment, especially those that associate violence with the (working) poor and Afro-Brazilians living in peripheral neighborhoods like his and the even poorer sections surrounding his neighborhood. The film’s suggestive title underscores the precariousness of life in Valter’s neighborhood and, at the same time, points to the impossibility of any other choice. Is it possible to leave?

Leave to where? Highlighting the distances and differences that exist in a polarized society, Os Inquilinos positions the destitute as imprisoned by a system that privileges hegemonic elite.

Urban spatiality

The film represents the precariousness of Valter’s existence by exploring his home and work environments. He lives in a very modest house and has a low-pay job carrying fruit boxes in one of the shops in an entrepôt19 in São Paulo. Formal elements such as dense composition, framing, and the potential symbolism of the mise‐en‐scène contribute to create a framework of the social and material conditions of life in the periphery of São

Paulo. The film foregrounds the lack of social mobility and violence, and material precariousness such as the lack of green and proper convivial public space at the fringes of the city. Bianchi’s film also does it through the examination of the question of representation such as literature, television and music, which I will discuss in a later section.

The opening scenes depict Valter’s family dynamics. He lives with his wife, Iara, and two kids (Nanda and Diego) in a typical working class neighborhood in São Paulo’s periphery, and Valter’s perspective dominates the film. We later learn that the neighborhood where he lives is called Vila Imperial (Imperial Village), a name that exemplifies Bianchi’s characteristic use of irony. Iara wants to move because this neighborhood is located near the dangerous favela depicted in the opening scene, but

Valter insists on staying. As he points out to her, his father built the house in which they live “brick by brick” and for that reason he does not want to move. Through this interchange, the film reminds viewers of the on-going challenges faced, generation after

19 Valter works at Ceagesp - Companhia de Entrepostos e Armazéns Gerais de São Paulo, one of the world’s largest warehouses of vegetables and fruits (among other things such as flowers and fish), state- run, located in Vila Leopoldina neighborhood in São Paulo. 46 generation, by lower working-class families in terms of finding and maintaining their own homes. As Teresa Caldeira points out when discussing home ownership and the privileging of the elite over the poor regarding financing,

The workers in the periphery were further neglected in that they never received

any kind of financing to build their own houses. The few lending programs

created for them either had requirements they could not fulfill or were quickly

redirected to the middle class… Therefore, workers ended up building their own

houses by a process called autoconstrução, or autoconstruction. This is a lifetime

process in which the workers buy a lot and build either a room or shack at the

back of it, move in, and then spend decades expanding and improving the

construction, furnishing and decorating the house. (222)

This accounts for some of the barriers encountered by low-income families to have access to basic needs such as home ownership.

The film underlines working-class efforts and struggles to overcome the difficulties of peripheral life and to achieve some level of socio-economic mobility.

Besides working at the entrepôt Valter goes to night school to achieve something else in life, and he is supported by his wife. School therefore becomes a tool in order for this family to carry out its dreams. He leaves early in the morning and arrives back home late at night, after school, a daily routine for millions of paulistanos as emphasized by the film in different moments. The shots depicting workers leaving to work, taking the bus and arriving home underline this social condition that is very familiar to São Paulo’s

47 dynamics. The film offers an insider’s look of working class life. Iara stays home all day taking care of the house and the kids. Os Inquilinos depicts a working class family that lives a simple life but has the basics that they need, that is, a house, and food on the table.

The moments they can be together are mainly weekends. And their entertainment is reduced to watching TV, working around the house, and participating in the neighborhood’s social events such as family parties and so on.

In chronicling the family’s routines, the plot encourages spectators to perceive and reflect on the exhausting rhythms of urban life, and make certain assumptions about its dynamics. In what follows I will analyze these particular characteristics of the film in order to see how they contribute to build the different perspectives through which to look into the sense of urban entrapment provoked by Os Inquilinos.

Entrapment: absence and power differences

The opening sequence is pivotal. It starts with an extreme long shot of a “wall” of small houses built almost on the top of each other on a steep hill (Figure 1.1). They fill the entire screen for a few seconds and invoke sensations ranging from discomfort to dread as underscored by the first minor tone chords of Joseph-Maurice Ravel’s gloomy Un

Grand Sommeil Noir20 in the background. First and foremost the shot provokes a sense of entrapment. There seems to be no escape from that place because the usual urban spatial grid cannot be identified; there are no visible streets, and no open spaces. It is also

20 A Long Black Sleep,“A long black sleep/Descends upon my life:/Sleep, all hope,/Sleep, all desire! I can no longer see anything,/I am losing my remembrance/Of the bad and the good . . ./Oh, the sad story! I am a cradle/That is rocked by a hand/In the depth of a vault./Silence, silence!” 48 disorienting because the image does not provide any clear sense of urban direction or recognizable landmarks.

Figure 1.1. Opening shot picturing the favela.

The “flatness” of the shot (produced by a telephoto lens) emphasizes these feelings. The lack of deep space communicates a sense of being spatially entrapped that is highlighted by a dissolve into the second shot featuring a more distant frame of the same image (Figure 1.2). Rather than allowing us to see “more clearly,” the second shot merely deepens our sense of the scale of this dehumanizing landscape. Both extreme long shots have in their center a tree surrounded by concrete and bricks. As the concrete’s presence grows with the dissolve, the tree seems to shrink in the center of the image.

Figure 1.2. Second (dissolve) shot of the favela.

In producing this effect, the dissolve takes what Henri Lefebvre has said about the contrast between nature and the urban provoked by industrialization processes to an extreme:

But what becomes of the attempt, inherent in urban space, to reunite the

spontaneous and the artificial, nature and culture? There is no city, no urban space

without a garden or park, without the simulation of nature, without labyrinths, the

evocation of the ocean or forest, without trees tormented into strange human and

inhuman shapes [...] Theoretically, nature is shrinking, but the signs of nature and

the natural are multiplying, replacing and supplanting real ‘nature.’ These signs

are mass-produced and sold. A tree, a flower, a branch, a scent, or a word can

become signs of absence: of an illusory and fictive presence. (26, 27) 50

The film suggests that at least in this specific peripheral urban space the illusion of nature has almost been wiped away. The urban tendency to recuperate nature, and provide an illusory sense of closeness to alleviate its absence (as outlined by Lefebvre), seems only the faintest of gestures in the context of São Paulo’s periphery, as portrayed by Os Inquilinos. The film wants to highlight what is absent (nature as well as many other basic, humanizing factors) in order to discuss the precariousness of this socially unbalanced urban environment. The absence of minimum infrastructural improvements points to power differences between center and periphery.

The image in the opening scene could be that of a slum anywhere in the

(underdeveloped) world, more specifically anywhere in the Global South. We later learn that it is a typical Brazilian favela located in São Paulo’s periphery.21 The houses are small and lack any embellishment. The presence of the favela, which will appear in the background of other shots in other scenes throughout the film, emphasizes the proximity of two different yet somehow structurally similar spaces (i.e. the favela and its adjacent working-class neighborhood). This sense of adjacency allows the tree—standing alone in the middle of a packed, chaotic built environment—to function as a symbol of life surrounded by death and of life under siege for both the favela and Valter’s working-class neighborhood.

21 Juliana Castilho, “A prefeitura de São Paulo define favela como sendo: espaços habitados precários, com moradias autoconstruídas, formadas a partir da ocupação de terrenos públicos ou particulares. (...). Caracterizam-se pelos baixos índices de infraestrutura, ausência de serviços públicos e população de baixa renda.” [“The city of São Paulo defines favela as: precarious living spaces, with self-built housing, formed from the occupation of public or private land. (...). They are characterized by low infrastructure levels, lack of public services and low-income population.”] 51

In these early images, Os Inquilinos seems to echo the way in which the city’s poorer neighborhoods have come to be visually imagined in the media –as if from a distance, by those who live elsewhere, as an endless sea of indistinguishable hovels. At the same time, the images raise provocative questions on the part of the spectator. First there is the question of the material space being depicted. The density of the image might evoke concern about the structural safety of these houses and their dwellers as well as the probable lack of important infrastructural basics such as sewage and water.22 In the socio- political arena the probable queries may refer to issues such as the right to the land and to the city, that is, do the residents own those homes or were they illegally taken? Why does it happen and who let it happen? Is it a safe place or is it subject to violence, trafficking, and the sort? Who are the people who live there? These questions and others have been the focus of Brazilian society for a long time; and the film’s opening seems to invite spectators to retake those debates.23 Through this opening scene the film leads us to

22 Juliana Castilho (2013) gives an account that, “Em relação à coleta de esgoto sanitário, 42,1% das favelas não possuem nenhum atendimento, 49,5% são atendidas parcialmente e somente 8,3% possuem atendimento integral. As favelas que possuem coleta de lixo representam 92,5% do total, sendo que em 27,1% das áreas a coleta é parcial e em 64,4% é total. O abastecimento de água é realizado em 87,4% das favelas, sendo 62,5% parcial e 24,9% total. Sendo assim, os serviços de abastecimento de água e coleta de resíduos sólidos são inexistentes em, respectivamente, 12,6% e 7,5% das favelas inseridas no município, além de contar com um atendimento parcial em grandes partes das áreas onde o levantamento foi efetuado.” [Regarding the collection of sewage, 42.1% of the slums have no care, 49.5% are partially attended and only 8.3% have comprehensive care. The slums that have garbage collection represent 92.5% of the total, with 27.1% of the areas the collection is partial and 64.4% is total. The water supply is done in 87.4% of the slums, being 62.5% partial and 24.9% total. Therefore, water services and solid waste collection are nonexistent in, respectively, 12.6% and 7.5% of the slums inserted in the county, as well as having a partial service in large parts of the areas where the survey was done.] 23 Marcio Fontes (Secretary of the Brazilian Ministry of the Cities) and Billy Cobbet (Director of the Cities Alliances) in the presentation of The City Statue of Brazil note that, “No Brasil, anos de pressão dos movimentos sociais colocaram a questão do acesso à terra urbana e a igualdade social no topo da lista das agendas política e de desenvolvimento. Confrontado com as diferenças sociais criadas por uma das sociedades mais desiguais do mundo, a resposta do Brasil foi a de mudar a Constituição a fim de promover uma reforma fundamental de longo prazo na dinâmica urbana. Como consequência, as estruturas 52 establish connections between the image and our (lack of?) understanding of the presented picture and life conditions in peripheral urban spaces. And it also points to more profound socio-economic and political changes ushered in by neoliberal reforms that occurred in the previous decade. Before delving further into how the film adjusts our perspective to give us a more intimate understanding of those who live in the periphery, it will be useful to offer some background information on the urban changes that were occurring in Sao Paulo during this period.

Studies of the changing urban environment, mainly by urban anthropologists, have largely examined causes and consequences behind visible transformations in São

Paulo. Teresa Caldeira has written extensively about changes that have been occurring in

São Paulo. In her book City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo

(2000), she argues that there have been critical transformations in the quality of public space in the city from the early 1990s onward. These transformations are social as well as

fundamentais dessa nova ordem jurídicourbanística foram abrigadas na Constituição Federal de 1988 e na Lei 10.257 de 2001, conhecida como o Estatuto da Cidade. Entre os desafios encarados pelo governo está o de trabalhar para reverter uma característica marcante das suas cidades e comum em outras tantas cidades do mundo: a segregação socioespacial. Bairros abastados que dispõem de áreas de lazer, equipamentos urbanos modernos coexistem com imensos bairros periféricos e favelas marcadas pela precariedade ou total ausência de infraestrutura, irregularidade fundiária, riscos de inundações e escorregamentos de encostas, vulnerabilidade das edificações e degradação de áreas de interesse ambiental.” O Estatuto da Cidade: comentado The City Statute of Brazil: a commentary. Organizadores: Celso Santos Carvalho, Anaclaudia Rossbach. – São Paulo: Ministério das Cidades : Aliança das Cidades, 2010. p.3 [In Brazil, years of pressure from social movements put the issue of access to urban land and social equality on the top of the list of political and development agendas. Faced with the social differences created by one of the most unequal societies in the world, Brazil's response was to change the constitution in order to promote long-term fundamental reform in the urban dynamic. As a result, the fundamental structures of this new urban-law order were sheltered in the 1988 Federal Constitution and the Law 10.257 of 2001, known as the City Statute. Among the challenges faced by the government is working to reverse a hallmark of their cities and common in many other cities of the world: the socio-spatial segregation. Affluent neighborhoods which have recreational areas, modern urban facilities coexist with immense peripheral neighborhoods and slums marked by precarious or complete lack of infrastructure, land irregularity, risks of floods and landslides slopes, vulnerability of buildings and degradation of areas of environmental interest.] 53 material, and are reflected in a fragmentation of the city space. They are related to social imbalance and the consequent increase in violence. Caldeira traces this violence back to growing levels of socio-economic inequality that itself is a product of changing economic structures and dynamics, such as the initiation of neoliberal policies under the administrations of Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992) and Fernando Henrique

Cardoso (1995-2003). She points out that, “The increase in crime and violence is associated with the failure of the justice system, the privatization of justice, police abuses, the walling of cities, and the destruction of public spaces” (52). This triggers reactions leading to material adaptations as, for instance, the increased use of protection measures.

These measures go from the construction of highly protected buildings to the creation of residential enclaves, usually located in wealthy neighborhoods. This spatial fragmentation contributes to the abandonment of urban areas as well as to a more segregated urban space.

Whether or not such changes were entirely new is a matter of debate. As pointed by Sueli Shiffer and Csaba Deák,

It is undeniable that the previous urban and social policies had induced a very

segregated and unequal urban structure in São Paulo, with prevalence of

infrastructure and social equipment in the higher-income areas, and this begged

urgent changes in the spatial policies. We argue, however, that the shift in the

nineties did nothing of that sort and, on the contrary, were introduced precisely to

sustain the same historic process, namely hindered accumulation […], that has

been restraining the development of the Brazilian economy since the colonial 54

period. In this way they became new means of reproducing the status quo, in

which the privileges of the dominant class – an elite, as distinct from bourgeoisie

– take precedence over collective interest. (186)

Shiffer and Deák may be correct about the need to see the recent shifts in the context of long-standing, colonialist dynamics and Bianchi’s film situates its narrative within this broader framework in order to underline the deeply rooted nature of Brazil’s socio- economic problems. We can see this in scenes that comment on the informality in labor relationships for instance, as in the one faced by the main character, Valter; and the general weakness of the state. He addresses his boss, Zé, to ask him about the possibility of formalizing his employment status (providing him with carteira assinada).24 It would provide Valter and his family, as he argues, with a safety net through benefits such as

FGTS (I provide a more in-depth account of it in chapter 3).25 Zé replies by saying that it is money that he withdraws from Valter’s salary and gives to the government, adding,

“And you know where this money goes, right?” implying that this money is not directed to improve peoples’ lives, but rather ends up in the pockets of officials through corrupt practices, which are imbricated in the country’s fabric. The film’s setting in São Paulo,

24 The “carteira assinada” was created by President Getúlio Vargas in 1932 and in 1934 it became mandatory. It is an official document (in booklet format) issued by the Federal Government through the Labor Ministry that outlines the data about the worker’s employment contracts and is used, among other things, to grant social benefits such as FGTS and others. For someone to be considered officially employed and therefore has social benefits rights the job must be registered through this document, among other forms that have to be filled to the Ministry. 25 Brazilian workers formally employed have the right to opt for the Fundo de Garantia por Tempo de Serviço – FGTS. The worker is assigned an account. The employer deposits 8% of the employee’s income into that account. The employee has a percentage of his income deposited into that account as well. The employee has the right to use the money withheld in his account in special circumstances such as to buy a house or when he/she retires for instance. This Fund was created to reduce the deficit in popular housing. Informally employed workers have no right to the FGTS. 55 traditionally known as Brazil’s economic engine (since the early 20th century, but particularly now in the neoliberal era) makes Valter’s situation particularly poignant.

The film is underscoring that many have been left out of Brazil’s latest attempt at modernization.

The sequence closes emphasizing the country’s modernization process as a failure. The third extreme long shot in this opening sequence breaks with the previous flatness providing us with a sense of depth, a sense of how different spaces relate to each other and, thus, gives us a perspective (Figure 1.3). It depicts the central city’s skyline in the distance with some of its apartment buildings in the background with the favela in the foreground, suggesting the distance between that neighborhood from other regions where there are possibly better infrastructural (and probably social) conditions. It again reinforces the duality that will be present throughout the film, suggesting an underlying tension between the sense of entrapment presented by the two first shots and the possibilities offered by other spaces. The point of view of the shot is from an adjacent community where the main plot will develop. This opening sequence provides the backdrop for the discussion of the theme of entrapment, which is foundational for the film’s critique of São Paulo’s socio-economic and political environment.

Figure 1.3. Third shot of the first sequence, a dissolve from the previous shot picturing the favela in the foreground and a better equipped residential neighborhood in the foreground.

Urban violence and the politics of representation

The film foregrounds how the depiction of criminality and violence depends upon which perspective is chosen to tell the story. The next sequence, set in the working class neighborhood adjacent to the favela just depicted, builds on the commentary of the film about the entrapping nature of marginal urban spaces; and how we perceive that urban environment. A high angle, crane shot slowly tilting down shows children playing on a narrow street at night evoking Brazilian urban cultural practices while also hinting at the probable safety of that place. The scarce material condition of the urban environment is reinforced. The narrow street, pure asphalt surrounded by concrete, resembles typical ones found in São Paulo’s working class neighborhoods.

The descending shot pans to the right, at the same time it dollies exploring the space being depicted. It then focuses on a specific house with the neighboring one in the background. From the house comes the sound of a couple arguing. This opening track keeps us outside the house suggesting that the argument comes from the family, therefore positioning our perspective to encourage us to make certain assumptions about the nature of poor neighborhoods. It suggests a pre-conceived idea that poor people are ignorant, violent, and uneducated. When we are allowed in the house in the following shot, the film encourages us to question those initial perceptions by offering us a different perspective: the sounds of the vicious argument are coming from the television set broadcasting the latest telenovela. The couple arguing are represented as upper-class as evidenced by their clothes and the setting. In contrast to the contentious relationship presented on the small screen, we see an evening family gathering (Valter and his wife getting ready for dinner as their daughter watches TV), pointing to harmony and happiness. Through this careful deployment of onscreen and offscreen sound and space, the scene destabilizes spectatorial assumptions about the correlation between poverty and fierce conflict.

In encouraging us to recognize our misperception about the origins or site of

(urban) violence, this initial sequence anticipates one of the film’s broader concerns. And in the process, the film establishes a parallel between the spectators and Valter. Whereas we expected violent family relations in his neighborhood, Valter and his wife associate violence with the poorer communities located nearby. The idea of the favela is commonly charged with negative characteristics such as violence, misery, etc. Talking about the

58 socio-spatial differences and prejudices related to the favela and adjacent working class areas, Erminia Maricato comments that:

Alguns lutam pelo direito à cidade e outros por ganhos extras advindos de

atividades que são especulativas, na maior parte das vezes. E essa condição é tão

dominadora das relações sociais urbanas que frequentemente pobres que são

proprietários rejeitam a vizinhança de pobres moradores de favelas porque têm a

consciência do impacto negativo que estes têm sobre o preço de seus imóveis.

Ainda que pertençam à mesma faixa de renda, os proprietários se antagonizam

com os não proprietários. (14)

[Some fight for the right to the city and others for extra gains from activities that

are speculative in most cases. And this condition is so dominant of urban social

relations that often the poor who are property owners reject the vicinity of [the

even] poor[er] slum dwellers because the former are aware of the negative impact

the latter have on the price of their homes. Even if they belong to the same

income bracket, those who own property have an antagonistic relationship with

non-property owners.]

Therefore, one avoids being associated with this kind of space as is the case of Iara who does not want her son to go near the adjacent favela.

Nonetheless, when someone from a better off socio-spatial reality looks at these two places, that is, the main characters’ neighborhood and the favela, they both might be qualified as the latter, reinforcing the idea that periphery and poverty equals urban

59 violence. The cinematography underlines this blurring of these distinctions as sometimes the shots do not make it clear where we are. Valter’s home is visibly located on a high part of a street at the exact point where the street starts to descend a hill. The point of view of external shots most of the time positions the house on the foreground having the favela in the background. But because of the position of the shot it is not possible to determine the distance between the first and the latter. The daylight shots reinforce the image of the opening scene while the night shots completely blur any difference between the two places.

In the house, at the dinner table Valter asks Nanda to tell him about a book she read in school. The scene encourages the spectator to reflect further upon the politics of representation. As Nanda tells her father, her book is about some bad guys who invade a quiet town but are killed. In the end everyone is happy. Her father asks her why they were bad to which she replies, “They were bad because that’s the way the book wanted them to be. Because they weren’t good, and because they were born bad.” According to

Nanda it is the book that designates which of the characters is good or bad suggesting that the book makes a judgment, takes a perspective on the good-bad duality.

This scene introduces the film’s examination of the question of representation through literature. And the film will develop this in subsequent sequences that establish a comparison, between the work of two authors and their similar points of view of

Brazilian society: on the one hand the critically acclaimed Carlos Drummond de

Andrade’s literature and on the other hand marginal ones like Ferréz’s. The former is supported by hegemonic intellectual discourses, while the latter dwells in the periphery of

60 the literary discourses. While highlighting some differences between the two, the film also demonstrates their common ability to highlight socio-economic inequalities.

The film’s preference for the latter is perhaps not surprising given its own literary provenance. Os Inquilinos was adapted from the homonymous short story written by

Vagner Geovani Ferrer (2002), himself a resident from Chácara das Flores, a low-income neighborhood in São Paulo who like Valter worked at an entrepôt.26 Beatriz Bracher, writer, novelist, editor of literary works, co-authored the screenplay for the film along with Sergio Bianchi. This collaboration underlines the presence of literature in the film.

Os Inquilinos wants to interrogate how urban violence is represented in different literary and audiovisual texts and how different representational forms are utilized by different sectors of the population.

In the film, the school is the setting where literature is presented to evening adult classes underscoring the lack of contact that the common Brazilian has with literature in the home, where one is usually informed by television. It starts with Nanda telling her father about the story she read in school, but it is at Valter’s evening classes where the reference to literature is more focused leading to a discussion that relates literature to São

Paulo’s urban scenario’s reality. The mise-en-scène of the sequence in the classroom is vital to the portrayal of the relationship between literature and the city. It starts with the

26 Beatriz Bracher points out that, “O roteiro do filme ‘Os Inquilinos’ de Sérgio Bianchi, é baseado em um conto de Vagner Geovani Ferrer, morador de Chácara das Flores, município de Carapicuíba. Ele trabalhava no Ceagesp e, depois do trabalho, estudava em uma escola para gente como ele, que havia interrompido seus estudos.” Bracher, Beatriz. Contos da Perfireria. Folha de São Paulo, 3/21/2010, Section Revista da Folha. [The screenplay for the film 'The Tenants' by Sergio Bianchi is based on a short story by Vagner Geovani Ferrer, a resident of Chácara das Flores, municipality of Carapicuíba. He worked in the Ceagesp and after work, studied in a school for people like him, who had interrupted their studies.] 61 teacher (interpreted by Cássia Kiss) finishing writing on the blackboard, which is framed to show the following equation linking the contemporary writer Ferréz to the fight against the status quo: “Virgulino Ferreira (Lampião) + Zumbi dos Palmares = Ferréz

(1976)/Neorealismo - Literatura marginal/Capão Redondo.” These two Brazilian historical figures, Lampião and Zumbi, represent reaction against oppression.27 A medium shot reveals these words and parts of the poem “Uma poesia nova” (A new poem) by Ferréz, which she will read out loud and discuss with the students. A map showing the spatial division in regions of the city of São Paulo hangs on the wall behind the teacher underlining the presence of the city and pointing to a discussion that has in its backdrop a local marginal author. The ensuing conversation highlights how one’s socio- spatial place in the city relates to one’s perspective. Valter says that Ferréz is one of these people that think that to kill is normal; it’s part of life. The teacher asks him why he thinks Ferréz is defending violence. He then cites a line of the poem, “A sensação de ter asas não me agrada mais. Quero rastejar,” [The feeling of having wings no longer pleases me. I want to crawl.] adding that the poem is saying that peace is foolishness, and truth is nonsense, “O cara quer ver sangue!” [The guy wants to see blood!]. One of Valter’s fellow students vehemently disagrees. Evandro is coded as a young man from São

Paulo’s periphery through his accent, and his use of the informal phrase mano (dude/bro) to refer to a claim to authenticity. His lexicon codes him as someone who is very comfortable as a working class guy as well as someone who is acquainted with

27 Virgulino Ferreira da Silva (Lampião) was a bandit of the cangaço in Northeastern Brazil in the 1920s and 1930s. He became a folk hero (some kind of Brazilian Jesse James), one of the most well-known figures of Brazilian folklore for his fight against the political system of his time. His life was heavily adapted to literature, cinema, television, and music… Zumbi was a 17th century fugitive slave-became- leader of the best known Brazilian Quilombo (Palmares). 62

“marginal” cultural manifestations such as hip hop. He does not agree with Valter’s interpretation of the hip hop poem arguing that Valter’s perspective about another periphery neighboring and his own is inaccurate.

Evandro represents another socio-cultural layer presented by the film, and his inclusion encourages the spectator to question Valter as well as ourselves. How well do we know the young men who live in the periphery of these metropolises and who are represented and represent themselves through, among other facets, cultural elements such as hip hop, which can be located at the margins of the national cultural scenario?

The whole sequence is focused on the discussion of this peripheral poem, emphasizing its importance for the depiction of the city’s periphery. The lines quoted by

Valter come from a part of the poem that reads as follows, “Truth is external. War begins within us. Peace is too short a word to have any effect. The feeling of having wings no longer pleases me. I want to crawl. Well-thought out books are whores, well-paid through vanity. Mediocrity means knowing how to capitalize on chaos. God woke me early today and told me to shut up. Like always in this world, stubbornness generates common sense.

Amid sounds and a light drizzle, the most inane thing is to gaze upon truth and despite wanting to stop I now know you can’t stop blood.”28 And Evandro, responding very enthusiastically to the teacher’s call for reaction says the following:

28 “A verdade é externa. A guerra já começa em nós por dentro. A paz é uma palavra muito curta pra fazer efeito. A sensação de ter asas já não me agrada mais, quero rastejar. Os livros bem pensados são prostitutas bem pagas pela vaidade. A diferença dos medíocres é que eles sabem capitalizar no caos. Deus me acordou cedo hoje e me disse para calar a boca. Como sempre no mundo, a teimosia gera o bom senso. Entre sons e uma leve chuva, a coisa mais sem sentido é olhar a verdade. Embora quizesse parar agora, sei que não se para o sangue.” 63

Ferréz is talking about life like it is, bro, of real life. And then just because it is

hip hop people think he is defending violence, that he is gangster, etc… You think

that’s what he’s saying, bro?! … What Ferréz is saying, bro, is that the only ones

who come out ahead are the angels, you get me? the guys with bread, and we kill

each other to get wings, the beating wings, and we don’t recognize ourselves,

that’s wrong, man, having wings is wrong, he’s talking about our blood.

And the teacher responds, “So now you’re telling me that our blood is different? There’s red blood, blue blood, rich’s blood, poor’s blood. Evandro, you turn anyone who is different from you into an enemy and that way, my friend, there is no dialogue, there is discourse, you get me, huh?” The film positions this comment initially perhaps as an attempt by the professor to defend humanist principles – specifically the notion that there is something common among “all of us” and that literature becomes a means to recognize this quality. This is a reasonable position – particularly given that her (more balanced) tone provides a contrast to Evandro’s aggressive speech. Yet the film quickly undercuts this possibility. The exchange between Evandro and the professor is followed by an explosion near the school, which is seen from inside the classroom through a medium shot depicting the point of view of a student sitting at a desk. Right after the explosion

Evandro says to the teacher, “We can talk, you get me? It’s just that words are cheap, they don’t mean much. They don’t say it all! It’s a poor guy’s blood because he’s the guy on the street, it’s not yours, it’s mine, bro.” Violence remains outside the classroom, but nonetheless makes its presence known even there. And the explosion seems to lend

64 credence to Evandro’s earlier position; and to his assertion, here, that words are cheap.

Later on the film underlines Evandro’s point of view through his death.

The film’s utilization of Ferréz is absolutely essential to its interest in destabilizing hegemonic discourses about poverty. As a marginal author, Ferréz often addresses problems related to his reality such as violence, as shown in this poem. As himself a dweller of the favela Capão Redondo in the southern area of São Paulo,29

Ferréz’s texts mediate the materiality of the marginal and its literary representation. The trope of marginality is intersected thematically in the film by the presence of resources such as this poetry and through the cinematography, as seen right in the film’s opening scene, and recurrent throughout it. The city depicted is the peripheral one, which the film portrays as relegated to violence and material and social turbulence of all sorts; the one located at the geographical and social margins of a much bigger metropolis. The camera dwells in this peripheral place barely leaving it, provoking a claustrophobic sensation only mitigated by eventual extreme long shots of the sunset or sunrise suggesting a distant relationship between center and periphery. The spectator is only aware of the larger city from a distance through these shots showing some high apartment buildings in the backdrop of the city’s skyline, a space where the characters do not belong, except as the workforce that goes in, provides some kind of service and leaves, as exemplified by the second literary work referenced by Os Inquilinos.

The film expands on the topic of literature as a way to reinforce the presence of violence in the metropolis by bringing to the foreground a canonical author, Carlos

29 Ferréz webpage: http://www.escritorferrez.com.br 65

Drummond de Andrade. The reference to Drummond de Andrade’s work creates a parallel with Ferrez’s. In another scene Valter is on the bus going to school and passes by another bus that had been set on fire. The sequence is shot in slow motion, underlining the importance of this violent act. As Valter’s bus passes by the other one, we hear the teacher in voice-over reading another poem that will be discussed in the classroom,

Drummond de Andrade’s “Morte do leiteiro” (Milkman’s death). This poem, published in 1945, written by one of the most acclaimed Brazilian authors of the twentieth century, also depicts violence in the big city. A milkman, who lives in the periphery and goes into the city at dawn to deliver milk, is randomly killed by gunfire at the hands of a dweller of a better-off neighborhood who is aiming at a supposed robber.

There is not much milk in the country, / it needs to be delivered early. / There is

much thirst in the country, / it needs to be delivered early. / There is in the country

a legend, / that robber is killed by gunfire. / Then the young man who is a

milkman / at dawn with his can / runs fast delivering / good milk for bad people. /

His can, his bottles / and his rubber shoes / go by telling the men asleep / that

someone woke up very early / and came from the farthest suburb / to bring the

coldest / and whitest milk from the best cow / for all to have strength / in the

brave fight of the city. / In his hand the white bottle / has no time to say / the

things that I attribute to him / neither the milkman illiterate young man. / dweller

at Namur Street, / employee of the entrepôt / At 21 years old… 30

This poem depicts the city from decades earlier, and the relationship the working-class man from the periphery has with the central areas of the city, the same kind of relationship that Valter, the epitome of working class man, has with São Paulo. This is the kind of relationship of one who goes into the city as a worker, but cannot live there because his labor will never allow him sufficient socio-economic mobility. The poem also underlines violence in the city, connecting with Evandro’s discussion of the killing of young, innocent people. It says, “Os tiros na madrugada / liquidaram meu leiteiro. / Se era noivo, se era virgem, / se era alegre, se era bom, / não sei, / é tarde para saber.” [The shots at dawn / liquidated my milkman. / If he was engaged, if he was a virgin, / if he was happy, if it was good, / I do not know, / too late to learn.] The film underscores the persistence of violent acts in São Paulo (and the country by extension) underlining the banality of poor people’s death.

The reference to the poems of two authors from very different backgrounds and recognition, spanning decades apart, certainly complicates the discussion of the representation of urban violence proposed by Os Inquilinos. The film is less preoccupied

30 “Há pouco leite no país, / é preciso entregá-lo cedo. / Há muita sede no país, / é preciso entregá-lo cedo. / Há no país uma legenda, / que ladrão se mata com tiro. / Então o moço que é leiteiro / de madrugada com sua lata / sai correndo e distribuindo / leite bom para gente ruim. / Sua lata, suas garrafas / e seus sapatos de borracha / vão dizendo aos homens no sono / que alguém acordou cedinho / e veio do último subúrbio / trazer o leite mais frio / e mais alvo da melhor vaca / para todos criarem força / na luta brava da cidade. / Na mão a garrafa branca / não tem tempo de dizer / as coisas que lhe atribuo / nem o moço leiteiro ignaro. / morador na Rua Namur, / empregado no entreposto / Com 21 anos de idade...”

67 with the external reference to authorial oppositions than with the relation of the poems to issues of urban violence in different times. One poem reinforces the other, contributing to the sense of entrapment the film wants to generate as a critique of the societal imbalance generated by the global metropolis. The film is suggesting that violence has long been a part of urban life and that marginalized sectors have often been the ones to suffer. The comparison also highlights different ways of representing that violence, one elegiac as in the case of Drummond; and one more distraught as with Ferréz’s work.

The film also examines the issue of the representation of violence and questions the politics of representation by positioning the main characters as spectators of violence in ways that demonstrate how televisual representations help to frame Valter and Iara’s understanding of their own surroundings. In the second sequence of the film, the family’s evening is interrupted by off-screen noise coming from the street. A cut to a close up introduces the next-door neighbor, Mr. Dimas (a white, blue-eyed man) as he greets his new tenants who are just arriving and will live in the little house in the back of his place.

Valter goes outside to check out what is happening. One of the young men (their leader) is yelling at Mr. Dimas. When Valter goes back inside, Iara goes to the kitchen window, which is a few feet from the low wall dividing the two lots, and from where she has a privileged view to pretty much everything that happens in the neighbor’s backyard. It is a frame to the outside world, recurrent in the film. The three young men go through the alley in order to get to their house, and a POV shot from the window frames one of them, shirtless, passing by. The arrival of the next-door tenants introduces the expectation of

68 violence as Iara asks Valter whether or not they seem nice people, based on the men’s behavior.

The film situates Valter and Iara as televisual spectators, to suggest how those televisual spectacles shape their understanding of their own neighborhood. As Valter and

Iara sit on the sofa, an over-the-shoulder shot shows the TV in close-up from their perspective. They are watching the show “Brasil Urgente” (Urgent Brazil), a real daily show that frequently depicts tragedies that occur in São Paulo, usually involving violence. It is anchored by the well-known personality José Luiz Datena and reaches high levels of spectatorship. The program shows a bus that was set on fire on the street by a

Molotov cocktail –an event that refers to actual urban interventions carried out by the

PCC – Primeiro Comando da Capital [First Command of the Capital], a criminal organization that has grown precipitously and nowadays has expanded its tentacles beyond São Paulo into other Brazilian states. In her discussion of the film’s engagement with contemporary occurrences, journalist Maria Rita Kehl points out that, “O filme se passa em maio de 2006, na semana dos ataques do PCC que assassinaram 35 policiais em

São Paulo, seguidos do revide da PM que matou a esmo mais de 400 jovens, em geral dos bairros pobres” [The film is set in May of 2006, in the same week of PCC’s attacks that killed 35 police officers in São Paulo, followed by the Military Police’s response, which randomly killed more than 400 young people, mostly from poor neighborhoods].31 In sum, the inclusion of the news report relates the narrative to actual violent circumstances in São Paulo and the larger Brazilian scenario. In the following graphic news item,

31 Kehl, Maria Rita. Os Sem Cidade. O Estado de São Paulo, 03/06/2010, section Caderno 2. 69

Datena talks about an eight-year-old girl who was raped, stabbed to death and left in the margins of a river in a favela, the same one shown in the opening scenes, close to

Valter’s home, near the Mangaratiba damn mentioned by the anchor.

Through the ubiquitous presence of the TV, the film suggests a common practice in Brazilian society, of being informed by dominant discourses through television. The

TV show within the film emphasizes a connection between poor areas of the city and violence. The reception of this news by the family and its reaction underlines a distinction made by different areas of the city about their spatial perspective. The favela is seen by the working-class family as an Other, a different place. Dialogue reinforces

Iara’s positioning about her spatial location. According to her viewpoint she does not live in a favela. However, television and hegemonic discourse in general may not differentiate between these two locations, characterizing the whole area as a site of violence. In this regard, Bianchi seems to be echoing the perspective of Michel de Certeau who said:

To write is to produce the text; to read is to receive it from someone else without

putting one’s own mark on it, without remaking it. In that regard, the reading of

the catechism or of the Scriptures that the clergy used to recommend to girls and

mothers, by forbidding these Vestals of an untouchable sacred text to write

continues today in the “reading” of the television programs offered to

“consumers” who cannot trace their own writing on the screen where the

production of the Other – of “culture” – appears. “The link existing between

reading and the Church” is reproduced in the relation between reading and the

church of media. (169) 70

In order words, these repetitive, direct references to television shows in Os Inquilinos suggests that the characters are passive “readers” lead by empty consumerism. Their understanding of themselves, of their neighborhood, and of the city at large is informed by television. From the opening scene the film indicates the importance of television as a channel for entertainment and information over other needs.

Indeed, subtle references to the influence of television and televisual spectatorship appear at both the beginning and the end of the film. The sense of entrapment and claustrophobia communicated by the opening two shots is tied to television, as evidenced by the presence of parabolic antennas surrounding the tree in the center of the image

(Figures 1, 2). The film’s symbolic and direct reference to the main Brazilian mass communication channel, that is, television, indicates subordination to manipulative techniques and therefore a sense of entrapment caused by this system. The film questions this passive relationship by showing how spectatorship becomes the privileged means by which Iara and her family interact with their neighbors. The film showcases it for example in the scene near the end which opens with a tracking shot following an older woman carrying a chair down the street and passing by other neighbors who all seem to be staring in the same direction off-screen. After finding a prime viewing location, the woman proceeds to sit down and watch the police take away os inquilinos. This scene is paradigmatic of the film’s critique of passive spectatorship. Ultimately, Os Inquilinos suggests that this is a consequence of the way Brazilians have been trained to be uncritical viewers of what is shown on TV. More specifically, paulistanos have become

71 avid viewers of violence as it has been banalized by television. Thus the impossibility of active citizenship given those ingrained habits.

The parallel established between the film’s opening and ending reinforces the claustrophobic sensation caused by the film as well as the subjugation under which working class live, under the rule of capitalism. The final bird’s eye shot depicting workers walking in the street leaving to work as in a procession, or most probably the metaphor Banchi would use would be that of oxen marching to death, matches similar early scenes offering a critique of an oppression system that incarcerates the working class in an indefinite loop.

Linha de Passe

Salles and Thomas’s Linha de Passe shares Os Inquilinos’s concern for showcasing socio-economic inequalities in contemporary São Paulo and the concomitant socio-spatial distinctions between the city’s center and periphery. I argue that Linha de Passe is interested in critiquing class and power inequalities through a narrative focused primarily on the working class and yet does not propose a direct critique of the power system ultimately responsible for the social gaps and material deprivations the film depicts. In depicting the hardships of peripheral life in São Paulo, the film addresses interiorized violence experienced by the characters in their daily fight for survival. The film shows that although violence seemingly presents itself as the last means of resistance for those trapped in an untenable situation, those on the periphery do not always opt for it. In doing so, the film humanizes the characters.

And yet, rather than circumscribing the narrative within a working-class neighborhood, Salles and Thomas’s film allows us to travel between the outlying areas and the city center in order to interrogate the notion of social mobility. This interrogation allows me to identify a line of thought within the film that I will call “fluidity.”

According to the film, the city is alive. It is the site of constant movement depicted through numerous shots of over-passes and roads showing the on-going flow of traffic or endless traffic jams. Yet, at the same time, Linha de Passe makes clear that these physical flows do not allow for social mobility. The film conveys its critique through recurrent elements in the mise-en-scene, most notably, various means of transportation (bus, motorcycle, car) and references to water (the river; the shower, the drizzle,32 and repeated shots of a clogged sink). Salles and Thomas utilize these elements to demonstrate the asymmetry within the social fabric as well as in the city’s built environment.

The film’s narrative structure reveals these asymmetries by following the trajectories of the main characters between different spaces; patterning its development through the oscillation between scenes set in two socio-economic different spaces. Cleuza is a middle-aged pregnant single mother who works as a maid for a middle-upper class family in an affluent neighborhood. She strives to survive as a low-income worker, commuting on the bus between her home on the periphery and her work in the center while hoping for a better future for her sons’. She lives in a small house in a working- class neighborhood in the outskirts of São Paulo with her four sons: Dênis, Dario, Dinho, and Reginaldo each of which has different fathers. She is an enthusiastic soccer fan who

32 São Paulo is known as “terra da garoa” [land of drizzle]. 73 attends matches at the stadium as underlined by the film’s opening shot. Her oldest son,

Dênis is a motoboy33 (a motorcycle courier). We follow him on his motorcycle through modernized areas of the city. Also, he has a child who lives with the mother who he sees occasionally. Dinho is a converted Evangelical Christian who works as a pump attendant at a gas station. Her third son is Dario who is about to turn eighteen years old. He is an aspiring soccer player who dreams of becoming a professional as have millions of other young men who see it as the only escape from poverty. His age is becoming a problem, though, as professional teams tend to invest in younger players. And Reginaldo, the youngest, wants to meet his unknown father. In order to do so he frequently rides the bus for hours in search for the paternal figure since he knows his father is a bus driver.

Through the journeys of these various characters the film portrays an image of the working class that suggests that these characters are walking through a dead-end journey.

Nonetheless, in the end the asymmetries the film showcase are reversed into hope.

From the periphery to the center and back home: forces of attraction and repulsion

The film introduces material and socio-economic dynamics in a centripetal narrative axis flowing from the periphery to the center. Linha evidences this particular mode of flow through the use of public transportation by Cleuza to “get ahead” in hopes of joining the

33 In Brasil all kinds of deliveries, from pizza to documents are usually done by motorcycle. Deliverers/drivers are called motoboys. They are part of the metropolises scenario and known for their way of driving. They go zigzagging through the traffic usually in high speed. They are usually underpaid and have to work long hours in order to make a living. Some people, mostly young men, work part-time as motoboys in order to make some extra money. Fatal accidents are common among them. The newspaper Folha de São Paulo reports that in 2014 440 motoboys lost their lives in accidents (Pereira, Elvis. Número de Motoqueiros Mortos no Trânsito de São Paulo Volta a Subir. Folha de São Paulo, Section São Paulo, 5/10/2015, accessed 6/7/2015). 74 middle class. Reversely, although less emphatically, the film also introduces the point of view of the elite through the character of Estela, Cleuza’s employer. The relationship between these two characters (and their differential socio-spatial mobility) works on an allegorical level to comment on the country itself given São Paulo’s reputation as the epitome of the country’s socio-political and cultural dynamics. Its reputation as economic, industrial motor of Brazil itself (the coffee boom from the early 20th century; the automobile boom of the mid 20th century, the financial boom of the 21st century) functions as the film’s macro critique of the country’s inability to fix big social gaps.

Before discussing Linha de Passe’s depiction of São Paulo in greater detail, I find it important to first define the conceptualization of fluidity utilized by the film. Linha suggests that fluidity is directly related to class status and instances of power. As I will demonstrate, the incursions of working-class characters into the better-equipped areas of the city, inhabited by the elite, are related less to a sense of spatial belonging than to obligatory social and economic circumstances such as work. The circumscribed mobility of the working class is symbolized by recurrent shots of the clogged sink in Cleuza’s home that readily communicates the material and social hardships experienced by

Cleuza’s family (i.e. their relative stagnation) as well as to larger societal imbalance.

Given the extraordinary size of the city, mobility is both essential and problematic. The film suggests that while the working classes have the least mobility, all paulistanos (even those who have the economic means to travel in their own cars) are plagued by some level of stagnation. And the film might want to suggest that this is one of the few characteristics between classes. The film emphasizes this through its recurrent

75 portrayal of different means of transportation such as bus, car, and motorcycle. By the same token, a very strong characteristic of São Paulo is the presence of wide roads and an abundance of by-passes (not as common in other Brazilian metropolises) pictured by the film, forming an intricate arterial system that frequently gets clogged impeding urban flow. The film showcases this characteristic through long shots depicting the city’s road system and its immense traffic jams well-known by the city’s dwellers.

These elements of the city’s structure function as a recurrent motif to undercut the mythos surrounding São Paulo’s modernizing promise. As well-documented by scholars such as Teresa Caldeira, the city received big investments in infrastructure in a more accelerated way throughout the second half of the 20th century due to developmental ideas such as those implemented by President Juscelino Kubitschek (I will expand on this in chapter three). This boom carried out by Kubitscheck in the 1950s brought great prominence and power to construction companies. As the automobile industry was placed in the region in the 1950s, it fostered economic growth and attracted millions of people, mostly from northeastern Brazil, driven by job opportunities. The increasing number of migrant workers that arrived in the city propelled by its growth and attracted by job opportunities mainly in the car industry and construction made the city area grow and, in turn, demanded the construction of roads connecting its different areas. The film indirectly comments on the socio-spatial legacies of Kubitschek's modernizing dream as it takes us through the modernized areas of São Paulo.

Contrasting more affluent areas with peripheral ones, the film underlines how modern urban planning (creating a disciplined spatial environment) has been undone by

76 flows of people. The stress on the transportation system –visible in the film’s multiple shots of traffic jams- evokes a sense of social stagnation and fragmentation, rather than social mobility and cohesion. The portrayal of the urban landscape ultimately foregrounds the underside of Sao Paulo’s long history of modernizing projects, which inevitably involve not only growth but also displacement. As pointed out by Mariana Fix,

A área urbana se expande ao mesmo tempo em que os bairros já existentes são

adensados, em um padrão que combina “intensificação da verticalização,

expansão periférica e reestruturação da centralidade” (Feldman, 2004, p.124). Na

década de 1960, a região da Avenida Paulista – antiga sede dos casarões da elite

cafeeira – começa a ser apresentada como “novo centro” de São Paulo, ao mesmo

tempo em que o centro da cidade propriamente dito passa a ser considerado

“decadente” pelas elites, na medida em que crescem o comércio e os serviços

orientados para as camadas populares. (46)

[The urban area expands while the existing neighborhoods are dense, in a pattern

that combines "intensification of vertical integration, peripheral expansion and

restructuring of the centrality" (Feldman, 2004, p.124). In the 1960s, the region of

Paulista Avenue - the former headquarters of the mansions of the coffee elite -

began to be presented as “new center” of São Paulo, while the city center itself is

regarded as "decadent" by the elites, as growing trade and services geared to the

working classes]

The elite wanted a clean area and the poor living in cortiços and other impoverished places had to be placed elsewhere. The creation of areas for the poor in the periphery led to the development of a bus system for commuting to work.

Cleuza epitomizes the peripheral working class. She has to take the bus to work, leaving home at dawn returning to the periphery at the end of the day, an urban ritual followed by millions of other paulistanos. Talking about this daily ritual, Edward

Dimendberg says, “For what belongs more to everyday life in centrifugal space than the daily commute, that ritualized movement between the urban center and its environs that organizes the schedules of so many who dwell within it?” (202) The film portrays Cleuza as part of this ritualized activity stressing the dynamics of working class urban

(im)mobility. She is a domestic servant who works for a middle-upper class family living in a comfortable apartment in a well-equipped area of São Paulo. It is through her that class difference is stressed. The narrative places Cleuza in a pivotal position providing us with different class points of view. Her incursions into the city provide a depiction of material differences and functions as a vehicle to underline socio-economic differences caused by political-economic issues that result in social fragmentation.

Through positioning Cleuza as a maid, the film addresses noxious employment practices towards the working class that impede social mobility. The fact that the servant does not have any kind of social benefit that would be granted by the “carteira assinada,” which was not signed by her boss, as other formally employed workers do, portray the informality and unfairness with which some segments of the working class are treated.

This is underlined in a dialogue between Cleuza and her boss at her boss’ apartment

(63’27”). A pregnant worker who does not have the same productivity can be laid off and left with no safety net and no guarantee of any sort. This issue of precariousness was foregrounded in a similar scene between Valter and his boss in Os Inquilinos. Cleuza’s relationship with her boss underlines social imbalance resulted by lack of opportunities in terms of social mobility which, the film seems to suggest, would be facilitated for instance by education.

Despite the film’s critique of this character, Linha… also utilizes her to demonstrate the correlation between education and social mobility. Cleuza’s boss is a well-educated professional woman who made her way into a comfortable life style as stressed by dialogue and cinematography. Contrarily to Cleuza she has a small family and a big apartment pointing to a connection between family planning and formal education.

These dialogic and spatial interactions suggest that the better-educated one is the more chances one has in terms of social mobility.

Even as the film holds up the importance of education, Linha… also points to it as inaccessible to people like Cleuza and her sons. It stands for material and social differentiation among classes. The differences are highlighted by the relationship between Cleuza’s boss and their sons. Dario, Cleuza’s son and aspiring professional soccer player, is invited by her boss’s son (who gives Dario one of his expensive soccer shoes) to come play soccer for his team in their building recreation area (39’). A commentary during the soccer game made by one of the well off young men is that he invited the maid’s son, who plays soccer well; with the only intention to beat the adversary using his power relations suggesting that he would not do so otherwise. A

79 common scene in the Brazilian imaginary is that of the poor kid, dweller of the favela or working-class neighborhood (as largely explored by other films) playing soccer in the street, frequently bare feet, or wherever there is some space that can be used as a soccer field, even if temporarily. The only access Dario has to an affluent lifestyle is through his connection with his mother’s boss. His one-time incursion into their lifestyle and their home, partying with them and experimenting with drugs after the game, demonstrate the huge social gap faced by the country’s youth and the poor’s difficulty in terms of social mobility. It is evidenced by the contrast between Dario’s life and the one he aspires. In

Brazil the possibilities for youth’s socio-economic mobility, from poverty to a better economic and financial situation, are scarce. As millions of young Brazilian men Dario dreams to become a professional soccer player in order to move from poverty to wealth

(replicating soccer idols career), most probably his only chance of social mobility. The film underlines this showing a long line of youths applying for a try-out. His aspiration into wealth is stressed through his spatial experience at the affluent’s home. While he lives in a cramped small house with three other brothers (the youngest sleeps on the couch) and his mother, the rich kids enjoy much bigger houses filled with expensive appliances. The film underlines the material gap by the use of different lighting. The affluent space is showed in brighter light than the poor home, photographed in darker tones. Dinho’s home’s sink is clogged and in different moments it is emphasized as such.

It is reason for anger because it does not function as it should. In one of these scenes

Cleuza says, “Será que não tem homem nessa casa pra desentupir essa pôrra dessa pia?!”

[Isn’t there a man in this house to unclog this fucking sink?!] The film uses this symbolic

80 feature to point to a malfunctioning of their life in general. Also, it is portrayed in dark color and as being old. On the other side of the social spectrum, at the affluent home, their sink besides being bright white and clean provides fluidity suggesting that at that end things work better and life seems to be easier when one has money.

The film mixes extreme long shots of the peripheral area where Cleuza’s family lives and contrasting shots of more affluent areas of the city characterized by the presence of apartment buildings, evidencing socio-economic polarities. These differences denote better investment of tax payer’s money in more affluent areas by the city’s government.

The lack of basic infrastructure in peripheral areas such as sidewalks indicates a prevalence of elite power over working class. The film underlines the differences through their locomotion in the city as well. Dario joins the wealthy kids in their car, but after partying with them he goes home on foot. As he walks in the street on a wide road the film emphasizes the differences on space experience by different social groups as well as the spatial presence of the city. The character is dwarfed in the shot underlining the size of the city.

The (lack of) flow of the material city and its dwellers: a metaphor

The recurrent scenes of spaces being explored by bus, car, motorcycle, or on foot demonstrate the film’s preoccupation with bodies in space and time as well as its interest in showcasing São Paulo’s unique spatial features from different perspectives.

Metropolises around the world are known for their spatial idiosyncrasies –for instance,

New York City’s skyscrapers or Los Angeles’ wide roads. São Paulo is known for its

81 verticality, and the endless sea of buildings that have given the city its nickname, “Selva de Pedra” (Stone Jungle). Linha de Passe uses extreme long shots and deep space compositions to capture the ample dimensions and density of this jungle. The shots also at times highlight the spatial imbalance of the city through compositions that juxtapose upper/middle-class apartment and office buildings and favelas (as in the sequence of the

“ponte estaiada” that I will discuss later). Over the shoulder shots such as the ones taken when we accompany Dênis’ incursion into the city in his motorcycle provide us with his perspective of the city, that is, the point of view of a motoboy in his zigzagging movements through lines of cars presenting us to well-off, well equipped areas differentiating it from Cleuza’s peripheral neighborhood, which is photographed in extreme long shots depicting its deprivation of infrastructure.

The film also stresses another characteristic of São Paulo, the quantity of bypasses and bridges spread all over the city. Their ubiquitous presence in the film functions as a way to explore the city’s fluidity, or the lack of it as portrayed in specific scenes. It also reflects how dependent the city is on the road system and also how it relates to social life, rendering the urban text alienating and dehumanizing. They are pictured in their different forms, interweaving with and intersecting the urban fabric in different areas. These elements interconnect with Cleuza’s kids as the narrative places their socio-economic lack of fluidity in relation to how the city moves. The soccer field where Dario does one of the soccer try-outs is located almost under an overpass underscoring its deprivations and the precariousness of the social situation for youth who want to try a better life through soccer. An over the shoulder shot during it evidences this perspective. Dario’s

82 supporter and the coach are positioned in the foreground talking looking towards the soccer field commenting on Dario’s performance, who is playing in the middle ground with the overpasses in the background almost over the field (16’00”).

The film critiques elite’s power by depicting one of the city’s iconic elements from Dênis’s perspective through his incursions into the city’s central areas. He is a motoboy who can barely afford basic needs, left alone paying pension to his son, faced by this harsh situation decides to rob cars at traffic lights on a motorcycle accompanied by a colleague. In a robbery scene on one of São Paulo’s road they pass by the most emblematic monument of the city in its recent history, the “ponte estaiada,” a bridge that goes over the Pinheiros River, one of the city’s largest along with Tietê River. Along these rivers run the “marginal” roads, two of the city’s main roads. The bridge’s opening was highly celebrated by the city’s authorities. It was opened in May of 2008 with the presence of many authorities, band, antique cars parade, and so on.34 According to

Mariana Fix, “A solução dos tabuleiros suspensos por cabos – mais complexa do que uma transposição convencional do rio e ainda pouco experimentada no Brasil – produziu a espetaculosidade almejada pela prefeitura, que pretendia fazer da obra um ‘chamariz’ para o mercado imobiliário, mais do que uma solução para o problema viário.” (41) [The solution of suspended cable trays - more complex than a conventional river crossing and one that had not been used previously in Brazil - produced the desired spectacle foreseen by the City Hall, which intended for it to work as a "decoy" for the housing market, more than a solution for the road problem.] Fix’s study points out that this bridge was built in

34 Fix, Mariana. UMA PONTE PARA A ESPECULAÇÃO - ou a arte da renda na montagem de uma “cidade global.” 83 an area that received heavy investments from big investors such as real state companies and a retirement fund with the incentive of politicians. Eventually the area became the new center of the city having postmodernist style upper-class buildings erected near the bridge. Mariana Fix also notes that,

Na margem direita do rio, o empreendimento imobiliário Parque Cidade Jardim

mescla funções residenciais, de consumo e negócios, em um terreno murado de 72

mil metros, ocupados por nove edifícios de apartamentos (que variam entre 235 e

2 mil metros quadrados de área privativa), um shopping center de luxo e três

torres de escritório. Os apartamentos são vendidos por preços entre 1,6 e 10

milhões de reais, e o valor geral de venda é de 1,5 bilhões. (42)

[On the right bank of the river, the real estate development Parque Cidade Jardim

mixes residential functions, consumption and business in a walled lot of 775,000

sq ft, occupied by nine apartment buildings (ranging from 2530 sq ft to 21,530 sq

ft of private area), a luxury shopping center, and three office towers. The

apartments are sold for between 1.6 and 10 million Reais35, and the overall value

of sales is 1.5 billion Reais36.]

In order to make the area attractive to companies and future residents, the favela located on the other margin of the river near the new buildings had to be removed. And, according to Fix, it was unfairly done. As pointed by Mike Davis in his study on slums worldwide,

35 Approximately 5 million dollars. 36 Approximately 750 million dollars. 84

Urban segregation is not a frozen status quo, but rather a ceaseless social war in

which the state intervenes regularly in the name of “progress,” “beautification,”

and even “social justice for the poor” to redraw spatial boundaries to the

advantage of landowners, foreign investors, elite homeowners, and middle-class

commuters. (98)

The first extreme long shot depicts Dênis and his friend on the motorcycle looking for a car they can rob (85’25”). In the background the “ponte estaiada” is seen in its entirety and on the right side some of the postmodern buildings built in the area. The second shot shows them at the end of the bridge they just crossed portraying a favela on the background. The sequence depicts the social unbalanced situation faced by the city.

Internal violence; fluid lives

Linha de Passe’s narrative is composed by a sequence of events involving these four character from the periphery structured in a crescendo. The film does a micro critique of the system that imprisons them through close-ups emphasizing their subjectivity and through shots that convey a sense of entrapment. As the events unfold connecting their daily struggles with the city the tension grows and we are presented with questions about the decisions that the characters have to make. When the destitute, trapped by an oppressive system that privileges the elite is presented with no alternative, what does she or he do?

One option that the film explores is criminality. As I mentioned, Dênis is faced with the impossibility of making ends meet through his regular job and so decides to try something illegal. In the last sequence that we see of him, he crashes his motorcycle against an upscale imported car in order to kidnap the driver, a man from a wealthy neighborhood (100’). The man, frightened, drives the car through the streets of São Paulo guided by Dênis until they reach a vast, empty lot located at a plateau in the periphery of the city. The man stops the car and, with the city’s skyline in the background, begs for his life offering his wallet to Dênis, who is still wearing his helmet. He takes his helmet off, and turns to the man saying, “Look at me, fuck! Are you seeing me? Are you seeing me, playboy?” suggesting that the elite (including those in the audience) does not see the poor. The film remedies this by giving us an extreme close-up of Dênis’ face showing him crying, visibly tormented. The end of this sequence suggests that Dênis was only acting out of desperation. Like so many poor people who live in the periphery and turn to crime, he is not a criminal and will not pursue a life of crime.

Situated as one of many who cannot find employment, Dario pursues his dream of becoming a soccer star. But even this “opportunity” depends upon participating in a corrupt system. Although a talented soccer player, he has been rejected many times and even tries to find a job. The film shows him walking downtown in the rain responding to job announcements; each time, they ask for experience and he has none (29’). A close-up of his wet face reveals his frustration. The film evokes the lack of jobs faced by millions.

In a later scene (59”) a reporter on TV shows the huge line of people who are applying for a street-sweeper position. “O salário de gari pode chegar a 660 reais. Durante onze

86 dias de inscrições multidões passaram o dia e a madrugada em longas filas de espera, gente que tem até nível superior. Os quase 100.000 inscritos terão que passar por três eliminatórias… uma relação de 1000 candidatos por vaga.” [The wage of a street-weeper can reach 660 Reais37. During the eleven days of the application process, crowds spent day and night in long queues, even people with higher education. The nearly 100,000 candidates will have to go through three rounds ... a rate of 1,000 candidates per position offered.] This scene parallels the competition faced by young men who pursue a dream of becoming professional soccer players. Dario’s last scene shows him at the try-out that would probably be his last chance. He had to pay a bribe (R$ 3000, a considerable amount of money for someone who has none) in order to get this chance, pointing to a common practice in Brazil. He is kept on the bench, and only towards the game the coach decides to give him a chance. He then gets a penalty, which would be his chance to score a goal. A close-up of his face shows him preparing to kick the penalty. He runs to the ball but we do not know whether or not he scores.

The subplot with Dinho explores the possibilities of redemption and freedom through faith. Having been a son who caused his mother preoccupation, Dinho, now an honest and faithful Christian, helps the pastor in his congregation. But in the end his boss accuses him of robbery, and Dinho, at the limit of his struggles to keep his faith, beat him. He drinks and ends up at the pastor’s door. The next day he goes with the congregation to a baptism ceremony at a river. Leaving the water after the pastor failed

37 Approximately 350.00 dollars a month. 87 an attempt to have a follower cured, he starts walking on a road. A voice-over in a close- up of him smiling repeats, “Anda! Anda!” [Walk! Walk!]

On a note of hope, Linha… points towards an open road of possibilities as the film cuts to Reginaldo. In the last scene of the film he leaves the bus garage driving a bus. He spent his time searching for his father and through his search he connected with a bus driver and observing him, and with the driver’s help, he learned how to drive a bus. He takes a ramp heading upwards towards an open road passing by an unfinished over-pass

(Figure 1.4).

Figure 1.4. Reginaldo driving the bus.

The narrative is built from the end, starting with the sounds of a woman groaning as if in labor. It is Cleuza, who is about to give birth. Throughout the film she is frequently framed in close-up shots or as cramped in the frame suggesting entrapment.

The labor scene is repeated in the end showing that she cannot attend Dario’s try-out for which she was supposed to bring the bribe, because of contractions. The birth of a new child symbolizes life and hope. This functions as a framework for the humanistic characteristic of the film, the reason why the film opens and ends with an allusion to giving birth.

As I have argued, the film is not interested in exposing injustice against the oppressed with the same acid vigor as Biachi’s film does. Linha de Passe’s interest is to present class and power differences grounding its narrative on the working class without proposing a direct critique of the power system responsible for the social gaps and material deprivations the film portrays. The film is interested in talking about human beings interacting with a dehumanizing city. As I demonstrated, violence against the destitute is shown less through externalized violent acts than as an internal process, manifested through their psyche. As opposed to Os Inquilinos, the characters in Linha are not presented as oxen hopelessly marching on an indefinite loop. In the end, there is hope; there is faith in humanity. There is a path through which one can walk after a rebirth, or drive the bus for that matter flowing towards a better future, even when surrounding structures are falling apart.

O Invasor

Similar to the other two films analyzed in this chapter, the characterization of São Paulo in O Invasor offers a contrast between center and periphery, and critiques social inequities. But unlike Os Inquilinos and Linha de Passe (which focus on life in poorer,

89 outlying neighborhoods), the spatial trajectory proposed by O Invasor traces a centrifugal route going from the central city to the peripheral one in order to offer a critique of institutionalized elite power. More specifically, Brant’s film establishes a strong association between elite power and the production of space, both in terms of the built environment and the attendant social communities constructed therein.

O Invasor critiques the material as well as the socio-spatial configuration of this urban environment through the depiction of its built environment as well as its social disparities. O Invasor introduces the city in the initial sequences by focusing on the São

Paulo’s modern architecture and the materiality of its central neighborhoods, which function as the city’s financial core. The city depicted through the first half of the film is that of the elite, typified by well-equipped neighborhoods and skyscrapers. This initial privileging of the city’s elite areas provides the viewer first with a visual portrait of power that emerges in this financial center epitomized by the construction company owned by the main characters. As I will develop further in a moment, the right to the land

(or the lack of that right, as in the case of the poor) is a crucial factor in the class divisions that exist in Brazil. Hence the importance of the presence of the construction company in the narrative as an important symbol of class domination and a means to

(re)produce social-economic differences. I argue that the film emphasizes the characterization of the central city (contrary to the emphasis on the working class neighborhood found in Os Inquilinos) in order to expose the immoral machinations of institutions of power, denounce the inefficiency of public institutions, and critique

Brazilian cultural and social practices.

Spectatorship and realism

The question of spectatorship is crucial for the film’s portrayal of São Paulo. O Invasor does not simply position us as witnesses, but rather implicates us directly as part of the processes being depicted in the pro-filmic. The film implicates us in two ways –on the one hand, by toying with the formal principles associated with the documentary and/or reality TV to give us a sense that we are right there in the moment as the events unfold; on the other, by breaking the fourth wall and having some of the characters speak directly to “us.” The extensive on-location shooting lends a sense of documentary realism to the pro-filmic events, as does the use of a handheld camera in various moments of the film.

The latter also functions to position the spectator as a participant in the actions of the main characters. These techniques are evident in the opening scene in which Ivan and

Giba, the main characters and owners of the construction company, go to a working-class neighborhood to contact the man who they are hiring to kill their partner, Estêvão, because he does not agree with their involvement in an illicit scheme to bring business to the company. The initial shot is filmed from Anísio’s point-of-view as he watches Giba and Ivan through the fence from the bar where he is sitting, waiting for them. One of the most common characteristics in Brazilian property protection, fence bars are used here to gesture toward class separation and to hint at violence. The subjective camera tracks the two men as they enter the bar and walk toward Anísio. Coming to stand in front of him, Giba looks directly into the camera (as if at Anísio) and asks, “Are you Anísio?”

By breaking the fourth wall, the film seems to address the spectator directly, to demand that s/he take a position: to be on the side of Anísio or not. Regardless of the answer, the

91 film has implicated the viewer as part of the vicious processes of urban life. No matter where one is in this social chain, there is crime, violence, and all sorts of unethical kinds of actions. The film suggests that these characteristics are part of this society’s fabric.

The only difference is in terms of who has the ability to exercise power. In this first scene, we cannot identify who the hit man is; so far, we have not seen his face and it will remain “hidden” for more than twenty minutes into the film. Instead, the film forces us to concentrate on the facades of the upper-classes. In other words, at first the film encourages the spectator to identify with an upscale lifestyle, only to destabilize this identification later on.

Production of space: the differentiation factor

O Invasor focuses on the elite’s space in order to critique its power discourse. The first half of the film is set in the affluent areas of São Paulo. Well-equipped neighborhoods and their modern upper-middle class apartment buildings define the elite’s lifestyle. Both exterior and interior shots depict the comfort these people enjoy. The interior spaces of

Ivan’s apartment (Figure 1.5) and Marina’s house (Marina is Estêvão’s daughter. Ivan and Giba hire Anisio to kill Estêvão) are clean and bright, with fine furniture and art on the walls. Exterior spaces are similarly spotless, featuring well-maintained roads and sidewalks, material characteristics that are not present in the few scenes set in the periphery. Giba’s apartment building is a safe place, emphasized by an exterior long shot of him arriving home late. The security guard opens the gate for him, underlining the

92 protected nature of central neighborhoods and their pristine infrastructure. These spatial characteristics invoke the power held by ruling class.

Figure 1.5. Ivan and his wife in their apartment. A clean, bright interior with fine art and furniture, and whisky on the table defines the elite’s lifestyle.

Figure 1.6. A shot from the scene in which Anísio takes Marina on a driving tour in the periphery (accompanied by an extradiegetic rap song by Sabotage).

Also, the scalar dimensions emphasized within particular shots (via composition and depth-in-field) underscore power relations between social classes. The scene when

Ivan goes to talk to Giba at one of their company’s construction sites includes an over- the-shoulder medium shot positioning Ivan in the foreground and underlining his power position. In the middle ground the construction workers (their employees) are framed in a much smaller scale suggesting their inferior position. This type of composition is repeated in different moments of the film in a way that symbolizes elite power. A subsequent moment in the same scene makes what has been implicit in the shots’ scalar relations explicit through dialogue. When they meet on the street across from the construction site, the deep focus, close-up frames Ivan and Giba in the foreground and

Cícero, the construction site’s supervisor, in much smaller scale in the middle ground with an upscale apartment building in the background (Figure 1.7). Giba says to Ivan, 94

C’mon, take a look at Cícero. He’s in charge here. [He] bosses [people] around,

rules the place. He’s not happy though. He wants more, just like everybody else.

And if he gets a chance, he will take it. Any doubts? This is how the world works,

buddy. He sure looks like a moron, but don’t be a fool. He respects you because

he knows you’ve got more power. Do not make it easy on these people, though.

Deep down, they want your car, your position, your money, your clothes. They

want to fuck your lovely wife, Ivan. All they need is an opportunity, to which Ivan replies, “What a great life philosophy, Giba!” Positioning the ruling class as dominant figures who overshadow the working class, the shots expose the elite’s crass perspective on social relations. The harsh emphasis added by the dialogue showcases the picture the film wants to paint of the elite in order to critique it.

Figure 1.7. Ivan and Giba, in the foreground at the construction site, and Cícero in the middle ground. 95

The film provides us with a guided tour of privileged sites such as Av. Paulista and, in the process, makes visible the sites/sights of power. Cinematography and mise-en- scène as well as narrative/discourse evidence it. The construction company evokes the ruling class position of power long familiar to São Paulo’s scenario. Some scenes are shot on the top of buildings under construction to evoke elite power. In these scenes, as I have mentioned, the film frames construction workers usually in the background to suggest their inferior socio-economic position in relation to the elite characters. Long shots of skyscrapers being built by Ivan and Giba’s company invoke this city’s prominence as a modern metropolis from mid-twentieth century onward as detailed earlier. The allusions to that history, also present in Linha de Passe, become much more explicit in Brant’s film

–not only through Ivan and Giba’s occupation, but also through the presence of minor characters like Cícero. Characterized as a northeasterner, he stands in for those thousands of immigrants who have come to São Paulo over many decades. Unfortunately, their hopes for greater opportunities and increased social mobility were not often realized. The main job openings were in the construction business as the city’s need for office and good home space for the affluent grew considerably. As Teresa Caldeira puts it,

The pattern of housing in São Paulo’s middle classes also changed, especially

after the 1960s. They too became property owners, but through a completely

different process. In contrast to what was happening to the working classes, the

middle and upper classes received financing and did not have to build their own

residences. They were moving to apartment buildings, the first type of housing to

be produced by large enterprises. The apartment housing market expanded

significantly in the 1970s, transforming the central neighborhoods. High-rises also

became the main form of office building, not only downtown but also in new

areas in the southern and western parts or town. (224)

The city’s more developed areas experienced fast growth and a rapid vertical turn. Iconic places such as Avenida Paulista and its surroundings housed international companies in modern skyscrapers emphasizing the region as a global space.

Early scenes of O Invasor portray these more developed and modernized areas of the city emphasizing their centrality, in the national as well as local imaginary. In the second sequence the camera shoots from the backseat of Ivan’s car as he and Giba go to celebrate the upcoming murder of their partner by Anísio. Ivan is driving and Giba says,

“Pega a 23,” [Take 23] (23 de maio Avenue), one of São Paulo’s most well-known roads, which runs through the central affluent area near Avenida Paulista, the so-called financial heart of Latin America with its iconic skyscrapers. This scene situates the locale of the ruling class making visible a space-specific class differentiation. In his discussion of the power of urban architecture associated with elite sectors, Henri Lefebvre argues that when there is a logic governing an operational sequence, there is a conscious or unconscious strategy involved. He also points out that,

The arrogant verticality of skyscrapers and especially of public and state buildings

introduces a phallic or more precisely a phallocentric element into the visual

realm; the purpose of this display, of this need to impress, is to convey an

impression of authority to each spectator. Verticality and great height have ever

been the spatial expression of potentially violent power. (98)

The film makes a strong connection between elite power and the production of space, both material and social. The space produced is directly associated with the ruling class and carries a great amount of violence. The film suggests that the violent power of the elite does not only express itself directly through the killing of Estêvão; it is also and probably even more expressive social violence.

The subtle inclusion of a TV report within the narrative demonstrates how the film serves as a comment on the contemporary moment and connects Ivan’s upper-class lifestyle to larger social problems. Ivan is watching a news broadcast reporting on the escape of more than three hundred young men from Febem (Fundação Estadual para o

Bem Estar do Menor) [State Foundation for the Minor’s Wellbeing], now called

Fundação Centro de Atendimento Socioeducativo ao Adolescente (CASA) [Socio-

Educational Service Center for Adolescents Foundation]. The news report refers to an actual event contemporary to the filmmaking and allows O Invasor to comment on the state’s inability to solve the ubiquitous delinquency problem. The Febem was created as a semi-secluded system to house young men (12-21 years old) who had committed (minor) crimes and to rehabilitate them to allow for their successful reinsertion back into mainstream society. Nevertheless the on-going rebellions and violence at that institution show the system’s inability to successfully deal with the problem of youth delinquency and the country’s failure to provide foundational social structures to these young

98 people.38 Within the context of the film, the inclusion of the news report goes beyond documenting the problem of youthful criminals and critiquing the state. The over-the- shoulder shot of Ivan watching the news and drinking whisky in his upscale apartment actually undercuts the program’s characterization of criminality as a discrete problem located elsewhere. Instead the film suggests that despite the seeming distance

(metaphoric and literal) between Ivan and the young escapees, both commit criminal acts.

The delinquent minors shown escaping from Febem have roots in peripheral areas, frequently abandoning their homes and coming to live on the streets of central areas of big cities. The periphery is where Giba and Ivan go to meet Anísio, the hit man hence the spatial correlation.

Subtle references to larger socio-political issues continue in the transition from the first half of the film to the next. When Anísio arrives at the construction company’s office the day after killing Estêvão, Marina, her grandfather, and their lawyer are there to work on the legal details concerning Marina as the heir and her participation in the company. As Giba approaches them, the lawyer is saying, “The business community resents such tax burden and we hope there will be a more solid fiscal adjustment by the government.” With this brief, almost unnoteworthy comment, the film critiques the ruling class’ alienation from and egotism toward deep social problems --most specifically, their long-standing efforts to avoid contributing financially to the larger society through the tax

38 In this sense O Invasor dialogues with films such as José Padilha’s documentary Bus 174 (2002), which depicts what happened in Rio de Janeiro on June 12th 2000, when a city’s bus was taken hostage by Sandro do Nascimento, an armed young man threatening to shoot all the passengers. Sandro had been sent to Febem quite a few times because of his involvement with minor law-breaking activities. This dialogue, although the news about Febem’s rebellion is in the background of the scene, most probably almost imperceptible to the less attentive (and knowledgeable) viewer underlines the film’s preoccupation with the reality surrounding it. 99 system. The lawyer’s comment makes reference to the high tax imposed by the government following neoliberal reforms ushered in during President Fernando Henrique

Cardoso’s rule (1995-2002).39 According to the São Paulo-based newspaper O Estadão,

A carga tributária do Brasil ficou em 34,36% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) em

2001. É o que mostra estudo divulgado nesta sexta-feira à tarde pela Receita

Federal. Nunca os brasileiros pagaram tanto impostos [sic] na história do País. Foi

o terceiro ano consecutivo em que a carga tributária ficou acima dos 30%,

mantendo a tendência crescente verificada no final dos anos 90, quando o Brasil

assinou o acordo com o Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) e o governo teve

que aumentar as receitas tributárias para assegurar as metas de ajuste fiscal.40

[The tax rate in Brazil stood at 34.36% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001.

This is shown by a study released on Friday afternoon by the IRS. Brazilians

never paid so much tax in the history of the country. It was the third consecutive

year that the tax rate was above 30%, maintaining the growing trend in the late

39 “Greater internationalization of the economy, particularly since the early eighties, forced developing countries into institutional restructuring to allow their greater inclusion in global processes. In Brazil, these reforms focused mostly on deregulating specific sectors to encourage cross-border transactions and participation of foreign capital as a direct investor, either in manufacturing or finance. The internal reforms required strong state intervention. A compulsory economic plan was introduced in 1994 to effect monetary stabilization (it was essential to inspire confidence in foreign investment returns) by introducing monetary dollar parity and high annual interest rates. At the same time the economy was radically opened by lifting trade restrictions, which resulted in the reduction of almost all duties on imported goods. Legal and institutional changes designed to spur the privatization process of heavy industries and public services were also introduced… The São Paulo metropolitan area, as the main Brazilian and Mercosur economic center, experienced the broader - national and regional – inclusion in international trade and business patterns in extreme ways. On the one hand, it developed the most advanced services and financial activities, the largest stock market and commodities exchange in Latin America, as well as sophisticated shopping and leisure activities. On the other hand, social side effects such as urban violence, marginality, and homelessness, have also been on the rise. ” (Schiffer 229-230) 40 Estadão 6/14/2002 accessed on 11/16/2014 http://economia.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,carga-tributaria-em- 2001-no-brasil-foi-a-maior-da-historia,20020614p31840 100

90s, when Brazil signed the agreement with the International Monetary Fund

(IMF) and the government had to increase tax revenue to ensure fiscal adjustment

goals.]

In his comment the lawyer is articulating the same perspective found in this article.

Besides imposing high taxes on citizens in order to balance the budget as part of the agreement with the IMF, the economy was widely opened to the international market through the elimination of trade restrictions –a shift that benefitted the much better- equipped industries from the Global North. This caused concern in the Brazilian business community.

O Invasor marks its critique of a system that privileges the elite. David Harvey points out that, “Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.” (2) The measures taken by Cardoso’s government are grounded on these principles. Although

Brazil’s domestic manufacturing market was affected adversely by the neoliberal reforms41 the film focuses on a sector of the economy that benefitted: local construction companies. It underlines the iconic importance of the construction industry for Brazilian and more specifically São Paulo’s development ideals as I have already mentioned.

Moreover, it exposes the elite exercise of power over peripheral realities. The

41 As noted by Schiffer, the manufacturing sector was abruptly exposed to voracious external competitors without a transition process that would have allowed the national industry to regroup in order to compete effectively (p.230). 101 characteristics outlined by Harvey apply in the film to elite’s discourse. As stated by

Harvey,

We can, therefore, interpret neoliberalization either as a utopian project to realize

a theoretical design for the reorganization of international capitalism or as a

political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to

restore the power of economic elites…. Neoliberalization has not been very

effective in revitalizing global capital accumulation, but it has succeeded

remarkably well in restoring, or in some instances (as in Russia and China)

creating, the power of an economic elite. The theoretical utopianism of neoliberal

argument has, I conclude, primarily worked as a system of justification and

legitimization for whatever needed to be done to achieve this goal. The evidence

suggests, moreover, that when neoliberal principles clash with the need to restore

or sustain elite power, then the principles are either abandoned or become so

twisted as to be unrecognizable… (19)

O Invasor emphatically portrays how the political agenda of the state preserves the interests of the elite, which are above and beyond anything else, including the law. The film suggests pervasive and corrosive practices that can be understood as national cultural phenomena rather than localized ones. Corruption, impunity, and unethical behavior are at the core of its characterization of the state’s acquiescence. For instance, the last sequence depicts the police’s complicity with elite power. When Ivan, under ethical pressure, goes to the police station to denounce the crimes he had witnessed, and

102 participated in, the police officers do not act according to the law, i.e. by punishing criminal actions; instead, they turn Ivan over to Giba and Rangel (Giba’s partner in a night club that he runs), who have bribed the police, and are waiting for him at Estêvão’s house. Anísio, who in the end is already part of their world, is also at the house, in

Estêvão’s robe.

In portraying the interwoven complicity between the state and business sectors, the film seems to be exposing the so-called “Lei de Gerson” (Geron’s Law) that regulates social life in Brazil. As popularized in the 1970s by the world champion soccer player

Gerson, the “law” refers to the idea of bending and twisting something (like a soccer ball) to achieve a goal. In a contemporaneous TV commercial from that period, the soccer star had asserted his preference for a particular type of cigarette saying, “Porque eu gosto de levar vantagem em tudo, certo?” [Because I like to take advantage of every situation, right?]. Although such “manipulations” are not necessarily a generalized practice among citizens, they are well known as being part of the business and political world.

By the same token, the film points to a dysfunctional public administration system. As it contrasts affluent areas of the city with peripheral ones showing the heavy structural and social discrepancies, the film underlines socio-economic and political incongruities surrounding this urban society. There are big investments in affluent areas of the city while the working-class neighborhoods are left unattended.

As I mentioned, O Invasor takes a centrifugal urban direction when compared to

Os Inquilinos and Linha de Passe. It focuses narratively and cinematographically on the elite by introducing the viewer to clean, well-structured, and bright spaces, although at

103 the same time contrasting this with elite’s dark unscrupulous behavior. The film then returns briefly to the periphery. Once again we take the back seat of the car, this time with Anísio as he takes Marina for a ride through the periphery, his area. The film recurs to the perceptual modality of the automobile (Dimendberg 168) to portray the material and social differences between central and peripheral areas. It is first through the car’s windshield/windows that we explore the peripheral space (the first scene of the film does not provide the spectator with a broader view of the periphery as this one does). As

Anísio drives around, the cinematography offers an exploration of the space from the spectator’s point of view as well as Marina’s, through a subjective camera suggesting that both she and the audience are outsiders to the area and that the film will inform us about this place guided by a local. This is a brief spatial exploration when compared to the emphasis placed on the affluent spaces that occupy most of the film. Nevertheless, as we explore the area, the images are drastically different from the well-structured areas formerly depicted. The film characterizes this peripheral space of São Paulo portraying decayed buildings, open sewage, unpaved streets, and graffiti. The scene is accompanied by a rap song that denounces violence in a disillusioned world. Through these parallel tours of elite and peripheral spaces, O Invasor offers a harsh socio-economic contrast between the privileged and the destitute. This underlines the film’s critique of the ruling elite as the recipient of socio-economic privileges in detriment of the difficult conditions under which the periphery live. At the same time, the film does not offer a solution for the socio-economic and political issues it brings to our attention. On the contrary, the

104 path followed by the trespasser suggests the perpetuation of practices deeply rooted in the

Brazilian social fabric.

Violent acts

The film depicts violence originating in the center. But the elite cannot itself pull the trigger. Anísio functions not only as the carrier of public violence; he circulates in two very different worlds. O Invasor positions this character as a bridge from the periphery to the center who can seemingly overcome the obstacles to class mobility in Brazilian society as he moves from a peripheral position to an upper-class one. His transition into the elite’s world allows him to circulate, connecting the two worlds. This circulation between classes touches on larger socio-economic and political issues, in a way that is thematically innovative. Contrary to other films that graphically centralize violence as a symptom of the contemporary metropolis, O Invasor presents violence as part of a broader socio-economic and political system. The film proposes a more ample scenario of urban violence by acknowledging the vicious actions of the elite. As pointed out by

Ivana Bentes, the 1990s saw a tendency to use violence as spectacle, and contemporary films such as City of God (2002) glamorized poverty. She denounced that shift as a

“Cosmetics of hunger,” opposed to the “Aesthetics of hunger” coined by Glauber Rocha.

She argued that, “Essa violência randômica, destituída de sentido, vai chegar à pura espetacularidade, e marcar a produção audiovisual contemporânea.” (90) [This random violence, bereft of meaning, becomes pure spectacle and characterizes contemporary audiovisual production] In contrast to those tendencies, O Invasor avoids the inclusion of

105 graphically violent scenes, and fast editing related to violence (although there is fast editing). Rather, the film portrays violence as a generalized problem that is rooted in all classes and is not exclusively related to the poor. The same way the peripheral trespasser incurs in physical violent crime, the elite is involved in social violence against the poor.

Giba says to Ivan, “Just because you’re not pulling the trigger doesn’t mean that you’re not getting your hands dirty.” Therefore, violence functions as a common denominator between classes divided in the city by ruling power. It is a condition of the contemporary metropolis.

As I have discussed O Invasor offers a critique of elite power through the initial destabilization of its centrality. The film first centralizes the elite aesthetically and thematically so it can then interrogate institutionalized power through the presence of the trespasser. The film does not offer a solution for the socio-economic and political issues it addresses. Instead, through irony and humor, it points to the unbalanced social situation in the metropolis and its incapability to solve its problems. The marginal hit man, inverting the initial order proposed by the narrative, assumes a position of power by poaching on his contractors’ territory and appropriating it. When Anísio looks directly at the audience towards the end of the film, pointing his fingers at us as a weapon, he defies elite power positioning himself as the one with power. He conquers their/our space, wins over the (upper-class) girl (the daughter of the man he killed), and becomes the most powerful figure in the narrative. As Ivan loses himself in desperation, Anísio is assimilated into their space, as shown in the last scenes.

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O Invasor distinguishes itself from other contemporary films that touch on similar thematic issues. As I discussed, it does so offering a fresh approach to the discussion of the common issues related to São Paulo such as violence and poverty. The film characterizes the city as a fragmented material and social space, violent in its entirety and not only at the margins of this metropolis as commonly explored by other films from the same period. By interconnecting periphery and elite’s hegemonic discourse, the film offers a more integrated discussion of the issues related to spatial characterization of urban life.

The periphery-center axis that I proposed for my analysis of these three contemporary Brazilian films allowed me to go from a particular socio-spatial view of socio-economic and political issues, and expand to a broader perspective on the representation of São Paulo by contemporary cinema. The sense of entrapment in Os

Inquilinos gives us a perspective of the working class socio-spatial perimeter from within, underlining deep socio-economic and political unresolved issues in Brazilian society such as the right to the land, and violence. Linha de Passe focuses on the periphery from the point of view of its dwellers. At the same time the film allows us some incursions into affluent areas. Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas depict São Paulo as a something that is alive; São Paulo has a pulse. This is developed through a metaphor that I called fluidity, a concept that encompasses the difficulty in social mobility. And O

Invasor, as I just pointed out, interconnects periphery and elite’s hegemonic discourse providing a more integrated discussion of issues related to the city. These three films

107 might shape the urban imaginary by offering different, alternative critical perspectives through which to look at socio-economic and political forces that define the urban fabric.

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Chapter 2: Contemporary Argentine Cinema: the Subject and the City

Introduction

The socio-economic and political transformations that took place in Buenos Aires over the first decade of the twenty-first century in the aftermath of the neoliberal turn of the

1990s were followed by changes in the built environment as well. I claim that these changes affect the city’s dwellers’ subjectivities and their way to live in and to explore the city. These transformations became a central concern of contemporary Argentine cinema. The films I analyze in this chapter span ten years (2002-2012). I first discuss two films by Pablo Trapero, El Bonaerense (2002), and his most recent one Elefante Blanco

(2012). They provide an intriguing look into the city as well as at Trapero’s oeuvre, which I will expand on in chapter 3. The third film is Gustavo Taretto’s Medianeras

(2011). These three films offer a look into Buenos Aires’ material transformations and their consequences for those who live there, whether they are recent immigrants who move into the city and go back to their hometown, residents of a peripheral community, or middle-class inhabitants of the more centrally located and better structured part of the metropolis.

As I mentioned in the introduction, the interdisciplinary focus of my study allows me to (at the same time it demands a) dialogue with specialized fields of inquiry. I draw from the works of social scientists, philosophers, architects, and cultural studies and film

109 scholars from different regions, which inform my analysis in this chapter allowing me to locate these films into broader socio-economic, political, and cultural issues. The work of French social scientist and philosopher Michel de Certeau provides an analytical framework for examining the relationship between city space and the users and producers of this social and spatial organization. The work of British geographer David

Harvey provides me important insights on modernity and postmodernity as well as on the configurations of urban space within the capitalist system. Argentine sociologist

Maristela Svampa’s La sociedad excluyente (2005) offers an in-depth look into the neoliberal turn that prevailed in Argentina in the 1990s. Her study helps me to gauge some of the social and material consequences of the neoliberalization process influencing Buenos Aires’ configurations in the 2000s. And the work of Argentine architect and urban historian Adrián Gorelik contribute to my analysis through his critically incisive look into cultural, social, and spatial reconfigurations that occurred in

Buenos Aires over the last two decades and their relation to longer-term historical processes.

Trapero’s films situate the viewer at Buenos Aires’ social and material margins.

Released in the convoluted moments of Argentina’s recent political-economic turmoil in December 2001, El Bonaerense offers a critique of the hardships imposed by the capitalist system on the common dweller of the big metropolis (a ubiquitous feature of his work) by contrasting the bucolic countryside with the agitated and cruel metropolis of the twenty-first century, in order to underline how the latter influences one’s subjectivity. The circular plot structure (beginning with the protagonist’s

110 departure from his small town and ending with his return from Buenos Aires) provides the spectator with an outsider’s experience of the socio-economic and political organization of the metropolis in contrast with the pace of the countryside.

Elefante Blanco depicts the social and material space of the villa through a “neo- neorealist” approach. Although focusing on a single protagonist, the priest, the film attempts to document the collective experience of living in poverty. The film presents a sense of impotence towards the possibility of social change and justice for the dispossessed against institutional power. Elefante uses semi-professional actors and adopts documentary techniques (hand-held camera, on-location shooting, long takes) to imbue the narrative with a sense of actuality or immediacy –while at the same time, recognizing that what is shown on screen can never offer a sufficient understanding of the socio-economic hardships being depicted

Medianeras offers a look into a merging experience between modern Buenos

Aires’s built environment and the twenty-first century post-modern, decentralized and fragmented way of living in the city and experiencing it. Contrasting with Trapero’s two films, Medianeras focuses on the middle class subject of central Buenos Aires, and how his/her subjectivity is influenced and shaped by this materially and socially built environment. The film offers a contrastive look into this environment’s materiality through memory, contextualizing the spectator within Buenos Aires’ urban/architectural development, utilizing historical markers as a way to connect and contrast with the contemporary social production of space. The film’s aesthetics centers on architecture as a main motif for its discussion of twenty-first century central Buenos Aires.

111

As suggested by the quick summary of each film, the three offer a critique of the consequences of neoliberalism for urban life. These films suggest that the changes to the built environment have produced a break-down of social communities and an increasingly atomized existence. The films encourage viewers to question these transformations by aligning us with the perspective of particular characters who struggle

(often unsuccessfully) to overcome the fragmenting dynamics of contemporary urban life in the capital.

El Bonaerense: a transforming journey in the city

El Bonaerense’s narrative is conventional; it has a circular format following a progressive timeline in the development of the actions and characters. The film tells the story of a man, Zapa Mendoza, a locksmith who leaves a small town pushed by circumstances outside his own will. His boss (Polaco) tells Zapa to go open a safe under suspicious circumstances and, in the process, he unwittingly becomes involved in a criminal action.

The next day Zapa is taken by surprise when local police officers arrive at his home, arrest him, and take him to jail at the local police station, supposedly for his involvement in the robbery. His uncle, an ex-police officer who has many connections in the force, fearing for his nephew’s life manages to secure his release and arranges a job for him on the police force in the larger metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (known locally as la

Bonaerense). Zapa leaves his small town to live in the metropolis where his subjectivity is challenged and transformed, only to return to his home-town – at the end of the film.

This circular process shows Zapa’s transformation from being a somewhat naïve and

112 seemingly peaceful (young) man from a small town to a more corrupt individual involved in unlawful practices such as extortion and bribing. The film offers a look into the metropolis as a transformative space through this traditional narrative. I argue that the film emphasizes contrasts between the countryside and the larger metropolitan areas of

Buenos Aires (conurbano) to underline the impact/effect that the dehumanizing metropolis can have on (male) subjects/subjectivities. El Bonaerense’s comment on the city underscores important thematic issues such as state corruption (embodied by the police force).

The reality of the conurbano

The film emphasizes its contrastive portrayal of two spatially and socially opposite urban areas in the introductory characterization of Buenos Aires in order to explore the subjective transformation caused by the city on the main character. Argentina’s capital is pictured as a dense, chaotic, and unwelcoming city as opposed to the openness, quiet, and friendly characteristics of the small town space where the main character lives, which is depicted in the opening scenes. The composition of the first two shots suggests that time stands still in this small town. The extradiegetic sounds of birds chirping and children playing over a black screen during the opening credit sequence suggest a peaceful, playful, bucolic space. A long shot portrays a group of men sitting in front of a bar simply contemplating the small town urban scene (Figure 2.1), which is only disturbed by a slowly passing car advertising something through speakers placed on the top of the car, and the woman who comes to call for Zapa (Figure 2.2). This first sequence comments on

113 the close and friendly relationship between the police officer and the common citizen.

The officer, informally standing by the group, among which there is a teenager, transmits a sense of camaraderie. Their proximity suggests a local characteristic of trust typical of that small town. Also, the composition of the shot stresses the use of bicycle as a means of transportation, which, according to the stress later given to the transportation system of the metropolis, would seem inconceivable in Buenos Aires.

Figure 2.1. Zapa sitting in front of a bar with friends in his hometown.

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Figure 2.2. This framing underlines the small town as a walkable space.

In contrast with these opening scenes of peaceful small-town life, the sounds that

Zapa encounters upon arriving in Buenos Aires define a chaotic and disturbing urban scene and point to a noxious relationship between this environment and its dwellers.

Unlike the melodic “A la voz de aura” overlaying Zapa’s departure from his hometown, other styles of music – especially, the high-energy, rapid cumbia villera42 – become a recurrent, extradiegetic presence on the sound track. Long shots depict a city dependent on cars and public transportation underlining its speed when compared to the initial scenes of the tranquil and walk-able space of Zapa’s origins. The shot compositions further underscore the contrast between the city and the small town life. Shots with

42 Cumbia villera was born in the late 1990s, amid an economic and social decline in Argentina. Its lyrics touch on poverty and misery, the use of hard drugs, promiscuity and/or prostitution, nighttime delinquency and clashes with the police and other forms of authority, antipathy towards politicians.

115 shallow focus picture the density of the city as opposed to the open spaces depicted in earlier scenes.

The film’s topographical delimitation of the setting, and casting choices, reinforce the focus on the material and social periphery of the city. The main character moves into the metropolis coming from a small town, but he remains at its margins. The film is set in the west side of the city, far from the downtown area and the city’s wealthier neighborhoods, as noted by a radio announcer who identifies his station as “La radio de la zona oeste del Gran Buenos Aires.” [The radio of the west side of the greater metropolitan area] (48:46) Also, Pablo Trapero delimits the exact region where the film is set in his interview to the Argentine newspaper Página 12, based in Buenos Aires, saying

“Yo soy de la misma zona que muestro en la película, esa línea del oeste que va de San

Justo a La Matanza y de Laferrere a Isidro Casanova, al borde de la Ruta 3.”43 [I am from the same area that I show in the film, this line of the west that goes from San Justo to La

Matanza and from Laferrere to Isidro Casanova, at the margins of Route 3] El

Bonaerense focuses on this part of the city, which does not have any of the monuments associated with the touristic Buenos Aires such as the Obelisk or Avenida Nueve de

Julio. The film depicts the peripheral zone of ordinary people and their daily routines of walking the city and taking public transportation; by choosing this space, the film underscores its focus on the common, working class citizen. The fact that the film does not present any of Buenos Aires most known monuments, such as the Obelisk, suggests that the process of “reading” the city takes a particular form when these elements are not

43 Página 12, Sunday 9/15/2002. Horacio Bernades. 116 present as in the case of the peripheral areas of the city.44 The film is taking viewers to less-known, less familiar territories to introduce the audience to these peripheral spaces.

The lack of monuments can also be referenced to casting, which takes an important role in the effect the film has on local audiences. Actors cast for the film were at the “margins” of the Argentine star system. Although professional actors, they were not famous faces to the local public and, as a result, contributed to a more realistic connection between characters and the peripheral metropolis. Jens Andermann using the example of Adrián Caetano’s and Bruno Stagnaro’s Pizza, Birra, Faso (1997) argues that the strategy of casting non-professional actors in real locations is part of neo-realist approach to Argentine film (36). Similarly in El Bonaerense, Pablo Trapero strategically utilizes casting and real locations to confer authenticity to the nexus character city. Jorge

Roman, who played Zapa, had had bit parts in Sol de otoño (Eduardo Mignona, 1996) and Cenizas del paraiso (Marcelo Piñeyro, 1997) and a few television roles in the mid-

1990s, but El Bonarense provided him with his first star turn. Similarly, el Polaco was the first role for Hugo Anganuzzi; and Gallo was the first part in a film for Dario Levy (who had had roles in only two TV series (in 1999 and 2000)) before El Bonarense.

The film conveys the dehumanizing nature of certain urban neighborhoods in its critique of the city. El Bonaerense does it through the interconnectedness of the subject and the city, filtering it through the common working class citizen’s relationship with the urban space. This process is anchored in the exploration of bodies in space. As Zapa

44 Drawing on Lefebvre’s work Steve Pile says the following: “Lefebvre proceeds to develop his analysis of monuments through two related readings: first, that monuments make visible and transparent space they can by providing the means through which they can be ‘read’; second, that the monument, as a ‘selective’ sign and a ‘pure’ surface, masks the modalities of power which produced it (and space) – whether these power relations are centred on state or masculine brutality.” (213) 117 arrives in Buenos Aires, the (blue) sky from the countryside depicted in early scenes disappears and is replaced by symbols of the modern city: concrete, asphalt, cars, buses, and crowded streets. The depiction of him sleeping on outdoor benches underlines an unwelcoming,45 isolating urban space in opposition to the first and last scenes where the film depicts communal and warm relationships in the countryside. The walkability of the small town is replaced by the need to use public transportation in the metropolis (Figure

3). The shots portray the chaotic arrangement of the metropolis and its impact on the lives of working class citizens. The particular difficulties faced by Zapa, as a recent immigrant with a lack of knowledge of how to navigate the urban jungle, are delineated in one specific scene after he arrives late for work at the police station. When he explains to the captain that he had to take two buses, the captain responds by saying that he could have taken only one.

The film stresses the nervous speed of the modern urban space at the same time it points to the city’s lack of proper infrastructure underlying its critique of the peripheral modernization of the city. This is highlighted by camera framing and placement.

Dynamic long shots of a bus and other vehicles coming at us/Zapa at a slight diagonal to the edges of the frame capture the rapid pace of the conurbano and the latent dangers of traversing the city on a daily basis. Commenting on Buenos Aires’ infrastructure, Adrián

Gorelik points out that

45 “Para los extranjeros Buenos Aires es pura construcción humana y puro presente: ni naturaleza espontánea (como en otros lugares de América), ni historia (como en Europa). Ciudad no hospitalaria, como sus elites.” (Sarlo 153) [For foreigners Buenos Aires is pure human construction and present: neither spontaneous nature (as elsewhere in Latin), nor history (like in Europe). Not an hospitable city, and its elites.] 118

[…] es fundamental notar que el problema del transporte es un problema

sistémico, que abarca el conjunto metropolitano y que, más que inversiones en

nuevos medios, requiere la decisión política para una reorganización radical de los

existentes, principalmente los colectivos y los automóviles. (234)

[…It is essential to note that the transportation problem is a systemic problem,

encompassing the metropolitan whole and that, rather than investments in new

means of transportation, requires political decision for a radical reorganization of

the existing ones, mainly buses and cars.]

Gorelik’s comment stresses Buenos Aires’ citizen’s dependency on a political system that privileges central neighborhoods and mega investments such as the revitalization of

Puerto Madero, which are designed to benefit the elite. His comment also points to the inability of the common citizen, the ultimate beneficiary of urban improvement in areas such as public transportation, to participate in the decision-making and planning process of the city. Urban planning as any other decision on the improvement of city’s life in

Argentina (and Latin America more generally speaking) is connected to dependency on the political system, which, ultimately, benefits the elite. The film amply illustrates the consequences of the shortcomings of the public transportation system –particularly as experienced by everyday citizens like Zapa. El Bonaerense also uses Zapa’s perspective

(as a newcomer/outsider to the city) to make those shortcomings more visible (Figure 3).

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Figure 2.3. Zapa experiencing the transportation system in Buenos Aires.

Zapa’s subjectivity is transformed throughout the narrative as a consequence of his lived experience of the material as well as the social characteristics of the metropolis.

His “self” has to adapt to the modern speed of Buenos Aires as well as to fractured, distant interpersonal relationships. As pointed out by Nick Mansfield, “This focus on the self as the centre both of lived experience and of discernible meaning has become one of the –if not the – defining issues of modern and postmodern cultures.” (1) El Bonaerense problematizes Zapa’s subjective experience using camerawork to portray the city as a transformative, entrapping space. The use of a telephoto lens to flatten the shot, for instance, suggests a two-dimensional existence (Figure 2.4). And the city’s materiality seems to “trap”/”subjugate” the subject, in a way that is diametrically opposed to the opening shots (discussed previously) and, more explicitly, to the last scene when the

120 subject is presented against a vast landscape that suggests an open-ended path of possibilities (see figure 2.7).

Figure 2.4. Entrapment/subjugation shown through the flatness of the shot.

As the film builds the transformation that happens in Zapa’s subjectivity through his experience in Buenos Aires, this process is reinforced by similar consequences that occur to people around him, particularly to his colleagues in the police force. At the peak of his exhaustion in the police force, the captain decides to resign (Figure 2.5). The extreme close-up underscores the psychological consequences imposed on the subject, in this case as the result of an excessively stressful daily routine against crime, which is ultimately caused by an inadequate political and economic system. The shallow depth of field and the overcrowded composition of some shots of the city underline the film’s

121 comment on the impact that the material and social city have on the development of the main character’s subjectivity throughout his journey through the city.

Figure 2.5. Extreme close-up evidencing the captain’s stressful state of mind.

One of the most notable repercussions of the rise of neoliberalism in the 1990’s and of the opening of the market to international investment and speculation was the intensified spatial reconfiguration of Buenos Aires. This led to greater stratification of the urban space. Although the city saw investments increase in the construction sector they were concentrated in building and renovating affluent areas. Commenting on Buenos

Aires’ role as a global city, Pablo Ciccolella and lliana Mignaqui remind us that this urban “renewal” took place with little involvement from the municipal or national government, noting that “[t]he withdrawal of the state from explicit territorial

122 policymaking in the face of the growing role of the private sector is one of the distinctive features of the 1990s in Buenos Aires” (310). The dominant position of the private sector in the reconfiguration of Buenos Aires sought investments that benefited ruling class tied to global capital. Ciccolella and Mignaqui also point out that the ensuing fragmentation and urban segregation was less the result of social divisions or urban planning than of the uneven incorporation of urban spaces into the global network. Poorly integrated sectors, neighborhoods, or municipalities coexist with modern, globalized, specialized, and competitive urban fragments. In their critique of the persistent urban inequality, they stress the dichotomy between center and periphery --i.e., the unequal investments that improved areas of the city associated with high-end business and commerce while neglecting others.46 It is precisely those neighborhoods of the city that symbolized

Argentina’s neoliberal renaissance (Puerto Madero, Retiro, la Recoleta and on through

Palermo, with its newly-named subsections of Palermo Soho and Palermo Hollywood) that are left out of El Bonaerense’s diegesis.

El Bonaerense is interested in critiquing the socio-spatial distance that exists between el barrio and central zones of the city. Nevertheless, as I have mentioned, the film focuses on the peripheral area of the city. The film stresses the discrepancies to its audience through the absence of central markers mostly through the immersion both of the viewer and Zapa in this “marginal” space. The spectators, like Zapa, have no choice

46 “From the morphological point of view, the restructuring of centrality in Buenos Aires has drawn a lineal district, or one in the form of a corporate corridor that connects Puerto Madero through the center and on to Retiro to form a new space of centrality. This contrasts with the previous space of the center, which was compact.” (316) 123 but to navigate this chaotic and overwhelming urban landscape. As he immerses himself in this urban spatial experience, his subjectivity is challenged.

Metropolis: subjective prison, social imbalance

The narrative of Zapa’s journey is developed in the film as a path of development and discovery through his experience in and with the (social and material) city. He is taken out of his comfort zone living in the small town, close to his family and friends, working for years at the same place as a locksmith, and taken into a path that leads to new experiences and discoveries in areas of his life such as work, romantic relationship, and his interface with state institutions. To some degree, the film might be considered as a type of Bildungsroman that examines the role of the city in (re)configuring Zapa’s subjectivity. Commenting on this genre Yolanda Doub says,

Bildungsroman evokes a narrative tradition that can be appropriated to

reconfigure views from the margin. The novel of formation has thus evolved in

such a way that it now incorporates forms that address the complexities of race,

class, gender, and sexuality in contemporary, postcolonial world. … In this

process of “becoming,” the hero goes through trials, often related to work, love,

and the legal system. (2-3)

The film appropriates and adapts that formula to demonstrate how Zapa’s “process of becoming” is definitely shaped by the material and socio-political environment in which he is immersed, a marginal one. This process has a point of inflection, emphasized by the

124 film through a rite-of-passage scene when Zapa has his hair cut. Commenting on the scene, Gonzalo Aguilar says, “The scene of passage is magnificently represented with the moment in which the protagonist’s hair is cut: Zapa looks himself in the mirror and finds

Mendoza the trainee. Thus begins the novel of education of the young man who came from the provinces.” (112) Although Zapa is not an adolescent, the film depicts him as

“child-like” in some sense –as he experiences a transformation from ignorance (about the city) and innocence (to some degree) to a knowing acceptance of corruption and

(physical and psychological) violence. The western zone of Buenos Aires is the space where this process takes place.

Zapa’s interaction with the city requires first of all a bodily adjustment to the way that the metropolis functions. El Bonaerense’s critique of the effects that Buenos Aires causes on the contemporary Argentine man starts with the transformations that this character of the neoliberal scene suffers on his own body. As David Harvey puts it, commenting on the importance of the body in capitalist society, “… the body is not a closed and sealed entity, but a relational ‘thing’ that is created, bounded, sustained, and ultimately dissolved in a spatiotemporal flux of multiple processes.” (98) The processes through which Zapa goes as the narrative develops involve the disciplining of the body

(Foucault 138), which is done under the institutional practice of the police force and his exploration of the city by walking and, as I have pointed, using public transportation.

The film points to how this takes place in scenes that document his initial foray into his new job with the police department. The police utilize various tactics to transform Zapa’s body into a disciplined one to fit the institutional needs. First, there is

125 the training process divided into two parts, one physical and another of classroom instruction. During the physical shaping of the future cadets, the film emphasizes not only the physical demands on the bodies, but also the verbal insults of the Sargent who instructs them using adjectives such as “bestia, larva, and animal” to address them. The formative process also takes place in the classroom, a space that usually evokes order and discipline. Long and medium shots picture teachers (male instructors and a female one,

Mabel), most of them in uniform, as figures of authority in front of the class conveying information to students. Similarly we see students, also in uniform, sitting behind desks in rows, learning from the same set of rules.

The film initially proposes a disciplining of the body as a sign of progress and social mobility within institutionalized power. These scenes of Zapa being made part of a larger community imply that the docile body (Foucault 135) can achieve social recognition and move up on the institutional ladder. This is what is suggested through the character of Capt. Gallo, Zapa’s superior; the tough, corrupt and much better-off Gallo replaces captain Molinari and becomes Zapa’s mentor. When Zapa arrives at the police station to start his training captain Molinari asks him, “¿Vos querés ser policial?” [Do you want to be a police officer?] to which Zapa answers, “¡Sí, señor!” [Yes, Sir!] Captain

Molinari insists, “¿Sabés dónde te metés?” [Do you know what you are getting yourself into?]. And Zapa’s answer is, “¡Sí, sí!” [Yes! Yes!]. Molinari’s facial expression shows resignation upon hearing Zapa’s answers and suggests that Molinari’s efforts to prevent

Zapa from entering the police force (and avoiding the associated pitfalls) will ultimately be fruitless.

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Despite what the film seems to initially suggest, Zapa’s submission to a disciplinary framework does not have felicitous consequences. Rather, as the film shows, his incorporation into the police force is the beginning of his downfall. Gallo’s socio- economic situation is emphasized in the scene when Zapa picks him up in a police car at his upper-middle class house. As Zapa is institutionally disciplined his passive personality is transformed into a more active and aggressive one. It is Gallo who lends him his own revolver, Zappa’s first gun. A close-up shot of the gun in Zapa’s hand underlines its powerful appeal. As the narrative progresses his aggressiveness increases.

After going through training and having to put it into practice, he at first does not know how to handle physical and psychological interactive contact in the line of duty. The film underscores this in the scene when he is confronted with a group of young delinquent men in the streets and does not know how to enforce his authority as a police officer.

Nevertheless, this situation gradually changes. After being disciplined and molded into the hidden dynamics of the police’s social body, he is able to inflict the discipline exerted on his body onto Mabel as a way to canalize his aggressiveness and demonstrate his masculinity. This is portrayed in the scene when they have sex in her bed against her will. The scene shows him in a state of domination over the female body through rough sex. The film utilizes this scene to critique Zapa –by showing Mabel’s horrified reaction—and to underscore the dark underside of disciplining systems that create hierarchies of unequal power, that privilege might over right.

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The disciplinary discourse that permeates the police force is emphasized by

Gallo’s remarks in front of his subordinates when he takes office replacing Molinari. He says, in an authoritative tone:

Estamos para resolver los problemas de la comunidad. No puede haber oposición

entre la institución policial y los ciudadanos comunes, honestos, ¿no? Los

problemas no se deben resolver ni con debilidad, señores, ni con gatillo fácil.

¡?Estamos?! Esa está una nueva etapa donde debe mandar una moral, una ética,

¿correcto? ¡Bien! Lo que yo quiero es que ustedes tengan conducta, disciplina. A

partir de ahora vamos a manejar disciplina.

[We are here to solve community problems. There can be no opposition between

the police force and ordinary, honest citizens, right? Problems cannot be solved

nor through weakness, gentlemen, nor with irresponsible gunshot. OK?! This is a

new stage where norm is moral and ethical actions, right? Well, what I want is

that you have conduct, discipline. From now on we will handle discipline.]

Nevertheless, the film wants to underscore that such disciplining discourse functions as a façade more than anything else. The praxis of this public institution does not match its discourse. El Bonaerense portrays the police as a non-disciplined and inefficient body underneath this façade. The film stresses these characteristics from the training process to the messy, disorganized, and decayed physical environment of the police’s venues

(Argentina’s flag on the wall outside of the police station’s building is dirty and old), to the lack of professionalism of the police force to criminal activities committed by the

128 police itself. Yet, the film seems to do more than simply critiquing the corrupt nature of the police force itself. Drawing on the work of Josefina Ludmer, Joanna Page points out that the representation of crime in film becomes a critical tool, “…being a phenomenon that is at once historical, cultural, political, economic, legal, social, and literary: it allows us to read in fiction the complex and paradoxical relationships between the subject, beliefs, culture, and the state.” (81) The police force is an institution whose role is to defend the citizens and apply law and order, but as represented in El Bonaerense, it is not efficient in doing so thus pointing to the inefficiency of the Argentine state.

The state of public service typified by the film in the police force underscores the whirlwind lived by the Argentine community as a result of economic-political turmoil following the neoliberal rule. Maristela Svampa, commenting on the socio-political transformations in Argentina caused by a dynamics of fragmentation inflicted by the neoliberalization processes of the 1990s says: “En definitiva, a partir de la crisis de 2001, dichas transformaciones, lejos de expresar una dinámica social pasajera y rapidamente reversible, han ido revelando cada vez más el núcleo central de la nueva sociedad, producto de la modernización excluyente y de la multiplicación de las desigualdades.”

(295) [Ultimately, from the 2001 crisis, these transformations, far from expressing a quickly reversible and temporary social dynamic, have been revealing more and more the central nucleus of the new society, a product of selective modernization and multiplication of inequalities] As I discussed, the city explored in the film, the peripheral, semi-modernized Buenos Aires, is a chaotic and dehumanizing space, whose dynamics shape and reshape its dwellers’ subjectivity. Zapa is initiated into this urban dynamic.

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The city demands a certain urban literacy and tries to discipline him. Although at first attracted by at least some of the characteristics of the metropolis (in one scene, an over- the-shoulder shot shows him at the window in Mabel’s apartment, admiring the view by saying, “¡Qué barrio este!” [What a neighborhood this one!]), in the end Zapa asks to be transferred to the police force in his hometown. The film ends with an extreme long shot of Zapa back in his hometown going to work on foot (figure 2.6). The depth of field accompanied by the extradiegetic song “A la voz de aura... ¡Aura!”, replayed from the beginning of the film when Zapa leaves to go to Buenos Aires, underscores the vast landscape of the pasture as he slowly passes by a flock of grazing cattle. As I have argued, in closing the circular narrative, his return to the small town ultimately provides the only escape from the chaotic and fragmented urban scene of the metropolis. Through this personal pedagogical process the film offers a look into socio-economic, political, and material configurations of the metropolis, defined by power relations. In this bildungsroman Zapa’s subjectivity was definitely challenged and reshaped.

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Figure 2.6. Extreme long shot of Zapa back in his hometown, walking to work.

Elefante Blanco: entrapped in the villa

If El Bonaerense focuses on the changes in an outsider’s subjectivity as he experiences

Buenos Aires materially and socially, Elefante Blanco underlines the collective subjectivity of the metropolis’ alienated villa miseria. Drawing on social and material spatial relations, the film offers a critique of the city as a fragmented socio-economic and political space under structures of power influencing how its dwellers’ lives are shaped.

The film does it through entrapment. In this section I will discuss how the film depicts the social and material space of the villa through a “neo-neorealist” lens in order to document that community’s subjectivity paying particular attention to its youth. I argue that, despite the film’s attempt to reach beyond the screen to foster debates about the

131 socio-economic conditions it portrays, the film presents a sense of impotence towards the possibility of social change and justice for the dispossessed against institutional power.

The film focuses on the social work of Catholic priests living in a villa in Buenos

Aires. Julián (Ricardo Darín) dedicates his life to the people of a villa that grew around the unfinished building nicknamed Elefante Blanco, a moniker whose significance I will unpack later on in my analysis. After being diagnosed with a brain tumor he goes to the

Amazon region to rescue Nicolás (Jérémie Renier), a younger friend and fellow priest who is the only survivor of an attack on a village. We do not know who the attackers are.

We only learn through dialogue that they are looking for “el padre francés” [the French priest] when they attack the village. Through Julián’s long trip the film connects the hardship of the villeros to larger systems of inequality that plague the region. The fight for land and a sustainable way of life in the Amazon as well as Buenos Aires suggest that dispossession is a transnational problem reaching all Latin America. During his trip, mainly on boats (probably in Amazonian rivers), the film depicts similar levels of poverty at the margins of the rivers to that of the villa in Buenos Aires. Shots of half-finished, brick houses establish parallels to those of the villa in Buenos Aires. Julián takes Nicolás to the villa where he will recover and help him, along with another priest and Luciana

(Martina Gusman), the social worker with whom Nicolás has a love affair. Besides helping his friend, Julián will need someone trustworthy to replace him in the fight against poverty and disenfranchisement when he dies.

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Neo-neorealism and Elefante Blanco

A “neo-neorealist” approach in the New Latin American cinema since the 1990s has been the subject of discussion by many scholars. Authors such as Jens Andermann and others have addressed the subject extensively. As David Oubiña puts it,

In Argentina, the films of the nineties had the merit of rediscovering the real city;

they are street films…. The definitions “neo-neorealism” or “new neorealism”

that have been used to explain the phenomenon that emerged in the nineties are

without a doubt reductionist, superficial and inexact, but at least they testify to the

difficulty of characterizing innovations whose reference points ought to be looked

for, in a rather diffuse way, in the foundations of modern cinema…. In this way,

even when they are fictional, these films tend to be documentarian (because they

work from documentary material) or “documentarized” (because they adopt an

aesthetics that belongs to the documentary proper) (40)

Joanna Page provides some examples of Argentine films from the period. In analyzing

Pizza, birra, faso (Caetano and Stagnaro 1997), Page mentions some of the film’s characteristics such as the use of handheld camera, non-professional actors, and improvised dialogue that convey realism. Drawing from Deleuze, she notes how this neo- neorealist approach privileges discontinuity over continuity, or a dissociative cut, and the replacement of action with observation. She points to the privileging of a “synchronic” cinema, which does not often offer explicit denunciation of past events such as the dictatorship or the Menem era, but rather focuses on the present. Pointing to this aspect

133 related to neorealism she says, “Everything evokes contemporaneity as we are persuaded that what we are witnessing is somehow more real, and less staged, than what we see in more conventional filmmaking.” (39) In La fe del volcán (Poliak 2001), which she suggests has a semidocumentary mode, most of the action takes place in the streets of

Buenos Aires. The film’s main character is a natural actress who, according to Page, had spent some years living in the streets. Page’s third example of neorealist film is Mundo grúa (Trapero 1999). She emphasizes Trapero’s use of non-professional actors and the connection between Roberto Rossellini’s or Vittorio de Sica’s realist films and the

Argentine director’s use of 16-mm black and white film stock. Another characteristic pointed out by Page is the elliptical narrative of the film, and, more particularly, “[a] resistance toward narrative closure […],” (50) a point of comparison with those neorealist filmmakers. These and other techniques used by Trapero give a sense of how he fits, into the documentarian/documetarized categories pointed by Oubiña.

In Elefante Blanco Trapero hints at a “neo-neorealist” approach through the use of on-location shooting (a formal element traditionally associated with neo-realisms of the

1940s forward) as well as its almost self-reflexive insistence on the relevance of those spatial referents within the narrative itself. This is aesthetically accomplished through the film’s cinematography, mise-en-scène, and a narrative that relates to some of Buenos

Aires’ historical facts. In an early scene Father Julián tells Father Nicolás the history behind the building called Elefante Blanco, as they descend the building’s stairs, saying that “Construction was stopped… and reinitiated almost twenty years later during Peron’s term. Then it was stopped again after the coup in 1955. It was going to be the biggest

134 hospital in Latin America. Now they call it ‘White Elephant’.” Julián also mentions that the construction was made possible by the efforts of “…a socialist…,” Alfredo Palacios, a Buenos Aires-born politician. This fact evokes in the film a connection with Buenos

Aires’ history. In the same sequence Julián adds that the villa has approximately thirty thousand dwellers and yet, despite this significant population, does not appear as a distinct neighborhood on any official map of Buenos Aires. This is factual information that relates what we see in the film to the actual neighborhood known as Villa 31. The reference is made explicit in Julián’s sermon during the celebration of the thirty-seventh anniversary of the death and martyrdom of Father Carlos Mugica.47 He says:

No es lo mismo la violencia de ayer que la de hoy, pero nuestro amor sí que es el

mismo. Por eso hoy, en la parroquia que fundó nuestro querido Padre Mugica, la

parroquia El Cristo Obrero, vamos a ser testigos de un acto de amor, de un

nacimiento. Así como nuestras villas formaron médicos, maestros, abogados hoy

el hermano Danilo va a consagrarse a Dios. Hoy vamos a tener un padre nuevo;

un hijo de la villa 31.

Violence nowadays is not the same as it was yesterday, but our love really is the

same. So today, in the parish founded by our beloved Father Mugica, El Cristo

Obrero parish, we will witness an act of love and a birth. The same way our villas

formed doctors, teachers, [and] lawyers, brother Danilo today will consecrate

himself to God. Today we will have a new father; a son of the slum 31.]

47 Father Carlos Mugica was murdered on May 11th 1974. 135

The Villa 31 was the slum where Father Mugica dedicated his work with the poor. This community is located adjacent to a prosperous area of the city,48 but does not figure in

Buenos Aires’ map nor is it served by public utilities such as electricity, configuring a strong example of the fragmentation of the city and its direct relationship with the film.

Mugica is a central figure in the film, adding to the connection the film wants to make with Buenos Aires’ “reality.” Elefante Blanco was dedicated to him. Right before the final credits it reads, “A la memoria del Padre Mugica, asesinado el 11 de mayo de

1974. Su crimen todavía no se ha esclarecido.” [To the memory of Father Mugica, assassinated on May 11th 1974. This crime has not been solved yet]49 Born into a wealthy family, he renounced that lifestyle and became a Roman Catholic priest, dedicating his life to working with marginalized communities, such as the ones pictured and cited in the film. Father Julián’s background is very similar, mirroring Mugica’s. In one scene

Luciana talks with Nicolás mentioning that Julián sold his properties to help the poor. He only kept an apartment in what seems to be a middle-class neighborhood. In referring to

Mugica directly, the film situates Julian (and Nicolás and Danilo, the newly anointed priest dedicated to the life of the villa) as inheritors of Mugica’s legacy. Moreover, this effort to blur the lines between history and the narrative represented in this fiction film lends the fictional priests’s struggle a greater sense of immediacy and urgency.

48 La villa de Retiro, la más antigua de la Ciudad, no para de crecer... Aunque no existen datos oficiales actualizados, se estima que unas 40 mil personas viven en las villas 31 y 31 Bis. http://www.clarin.com/ciudades/Peligro-autopista-Illia-crecimiento-Villa_0_1127887285.html [Retiro’s slum, the oldest in the city, doesn’t stop growing ... Although there is no recent data from official sources, it is estimated that about 40 thousand people live in the slums 31 and 31 Bis.] 49 It is translated in the film into English as, “In memory of Father Mugica, Assassinated May 11th 1974 by criminals who have never been identified.” 136

Traperos’ choice to circumscribe most of the narrative to the villa underlines the triad proximity-adjacency-distance, underscoring social differences through spatial references. A “real” Buenos Aires, or at least a sub-system of it, which is part (or not) of the bigger and diversified metropolis becomes the focal point of the film. Elefante Blanco only hints at the modernized Buenos Aires with its wide avenues and upper/middle class apartment buildings. In an early scene (13’56”), the morning following Nicolas’s arrival at the villa, an extreme long shot taken probably from a high floor of the building, overlaid with the extradiegetic song “Las cosas que no se tocan” [Things that are not touched] by the Argentine rock and roll band Intoxicado, pans from right to left (Figures

2.7, 2.8). It first depicts apartment buildings from what seems to be a working class adjacent neighborhood. The shot stops at the villa filling the screen with half-finished brick houses. It then cuts to a montage sequence, first depicting the houses and subsequently adding villa dwellers. The shots of cartoneros50 and children playing in the street emphasize the neighborhood’s extreme poverty, particularly through the presence of garbage. This is the place where we dwell for almost the whole length of the film.

Central Buenos Aires only appears in extreme long shots where it is far away or in a few incursions into the city by Julián, Nicolás, and Luciana. Buenos Aires’ central area is seen in the background of night shots from Julián’s apartment at the Elefante Blanco, for example, or in one specific long, daylight shot when he is at the top of the building

(Figure 2.9). The shot shows us some skyscrapers from the city-center in the background

50 Cartonero is a job that involves collecting cardboard and other paper products through the streets of cities, urban waste products, then used for recycling. It has become an alternative for thousands of people over the last decades in Buenos Aires and many other cities throughout Latin America. 137

(to make visible the literal as well as metaphorical distance between the center/the privileged and the periphery/the excluded). In another scene Julián is at his private apartment that he keeps in what seems to be a middle-class neighborhood. The camera shows the wide street, panning to give us a glimpse of that neighborhood’s infrastructure, which is very different from the villa’s. These moments function as a contrast to the villa as well as moments of escape for those who offer their service to the community and become psychologically burnt-out by the extremely adverse social conditions of this place. Julián mentions to Nicolás that he is tired. Cruz says the same to Julián, and

Mariana shows signs of tiredness.

Figure 2.7. Pan shot of the villa.

138

Figure 2.8. Shot of houses in the villa.

Figure 2.9. Julián at the top of the Elefante Blanco with central Buenos Aires in the background.

139

Once inside the villa, we encounter aesthetic choices in the film underlying the emphasis in recovering documentary aesthetics. We are immersed in the pro filmic space, frequently following the characters throughout the villa, being conducted through its alleys in a labyrinthine way. At other times, we witness montage sequences, like the one above, that privilege the depiction of the “real,” serving as a way to document, recalling photographs of impoverished areas that might appear in local newspapers. The space depicted resembles a puzzle that can only be solved by insiders, that is, its dwellers or the ones who work there like the priests, the only ones capable of navigating it. The viewer is invited to observe this socially distinct and unknown urban spatiality in a documentarized way. In an early scene the three priests walk from the building to the chapel in order to clean it after the heavy rain that fell the night before (Figure 2.10). The scene is filmed by a steadicam either from behind them or in front of them. Trapero’s choice for this type of camerawork reflects a preoccupation with documenting this environment for the viewer.

The smoothness of the shots evokes the observational sense mentioned by Page, underlying a certain detached sentiment as the characters navigate that environment in real time.

140

Figure 2.10. The priests walking through the villa.

Even as the film toys with realist conventions, it also undercuts them by directing itself to a middle-class audience through the actors cast in the film. Unlike Trapero’s earlier El Bonarense that favored unknown faces, we are taken on this spatial exploration by cinema celebrities, such as Ricardo Darín, the most well-known contemporary

Argentine actor, accompanied by Jérémie Renier, another internationally known actor.

Their presence, particularly Darín’s, provides a connection to his empathetic persona off- camera. Darín confers empathy to spectatorial engagement. Commenting on his star influence on films, and particularly in Elefante Blanco, Beatriz Urraca says that, “Darin's particular brand of celebrity generated public interest in the film and built up a larger awareness of the social issues it depicts among middle-class audiences.” Urraca also mentions that, “Many Argentine middle-class viewers felt compelled to pay to see a local

141 film,” (354) emphasizing Elefante Blanco’s extraordinary box office51 success compared to other recent Argentine films about similar topics, such as Villa (Ezio Massa 2008,

2013), which according to Urraca went largely unnoticed.

Subjective exclusion: church, state, youth

Elefante Blanco evokes the collective subjectivity of the villa in order to offer a critique of the harsh situation of marginalized youth. In focusing on the community adjacent to the homonymous building, the film examines the lives of those living at the lower social extremity in the city of Buenos Aires, and the experience of social displacement and exclusion. According to Nick Mansfield, “… the subject is always linked to something outside of it - an idea or principle or the society of other subjects. It is this linkage that the word 'subject' insists upon. Etymologically, to be subject means to be 'placed (or even thrown) under'. One is always subject to or of something.” (3) The film depicts the people of the villa connected to their own environment, being part of a local larger society at the same time they are denied any formal inclusion into it, and also as subject to (or in their case the more accurate term would probably be thrown under) social instability caused by the inefficiency of institutional apparatuses.

The film portrays the social dynamics of the villa from the point of view of the

Catholic Church, more specifically from that of Father Julián, focusing on the

51 The Buenos Aires based newspaper El Clarín reports that, “’Elefante Blanco’ se acerca al medio millón de espectadores. Desde su estreno, la película de Pablo Trapero, protagonizada por Ricardo Darín, convocó a 476.022 personas.” Accessed 3/14/2015 http://www.clarin.com/espectaculos/cine/Elfante-Blanco-acerca- millon-espectadores_0_712728874.html [‘Elefante Blanco’ approaches half a million spectators. Since its release Pablo Trapero’s film, starring by Ricardo Darín, was seen by 476,022 people.] 142 neighborhood’s instabilities and showing a preoccupation with local, marginalized youth.

From early scenes young people become central to the narrative. An early scene of a round-table conversation between the priests, Nicolás and Lisandro, and the social worker (Luciana), and some young men and women allows for the “reality” of the villa’s youth to emerge through their own voice (Figures 2.11, 2.12). The conversation revolves around the idea of belonging to the villa and what that means to them, and shows different points of view. A young man strongly argues saying that he has nothing, having been abandoned by his family –a comment that points to an underlying social problem experienced by other young villeros. A young girl mentions that she does not feel ashamed of living in the villa when other people ask her about it in school. And Lisandro emphasizes that they all (including the priests) belong there, they are part of that place.

Some aspects of the filming of this sequence are important in terms of how the film depicts the subjectivity of these young people. The first close up shot depicts Nicolas observing the group. The camera then roams around the group slowly, at eye level, positioning us alongside Nicolas’s perspective, that is, as witnesses to the testimonials of these young people. Nicolas watches the conversation and does not make any comment other than responding to some of Monito’s questions about how to say some bad words in

French at the end of the sequence. The sequence also includes some point of view shots that provide us with the literal perspective of some of the young people as they listen to the others. This conversation sets the tone for the depiction of these young people as socially disenfranchised throughout the film. Although Julián is the central protagonist of the film, this scene provides us with a greater understanding of how the villa’s young

143 residents experience their own marginalization. The point of view shots paired with the individual testimonials lend a sense of intimacy to their discussion and draw us in as another participant. Nonetheless, the film does not offer a solution for their situation as I will discuss later; on the contrary, Elefante Blanco wants to emphasize that this is an ongoing fight against the lack of interest of the elite to provide reasonable alternatives for a socio-economic problem that is part of the community.

Figure 2.11. One of the young men from the villa comments on the fact that he was abandoned when he was a kid.

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Figure 2.12. A shot from the perspective of the young people as they comment about the villa.

References to the “real” inform the film in its portrayal of both the material and subjective reconstruction of the villa as well as adjacent to Elefante Blanco. As I mentioned earlier, the film reconstructs the environment of the villa based on factual data from Buenos Aires’ “lived reality.” Father Mugica and Villa 31 are important references in the reconstruction of the villa’s youth’s lived experiences. Indeed, to some degree, the film seems to echo a report written by the Catholic social workers from Hogar de Cristo, that serve the Villa 31 community and others in Buenos Aires metro area. 52 That

52 “Hogar de Cristo,” Programa de inclusión y acompañamiento integral de Usuarios de Paco Vicaría para las Villas de emergencia del Arzobispado de Buenos Aires. [Program for inclusion and comprehensive support for Users of Paco of the Vicariate to the shantytowns of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires] http://www.sin-paco.org/centro-barrial-padre-mugica-v-31/

145 document notes the following: “Los jóvenes que habitan estos espacios, en especial los que viven en la villa 31, luchan cada vez más por salir adelante -estudiando y/o trabajando-, y van construyendo sus propios proyectos de vida –no sin sufrir diversas formas de discriminación por parte de quienes viven fuera del barrio.” [Young people living in these areas, especially those living in the Villa 31, struggle increasingly to get ahead-studying and / or working, and are building their own projects of life-not without suffering various forms of discrimination by those living outside the neighborhood.]

Nonetheless, the report also notes that there is still a considerable number of youth from these communities who are having difficulties remaining in school or finding a job and who usually exclude themselves from a close relationship with their family and friends.

These young people grew up in harsh situation where their parents were denied social mobility and were not able to provide for their family. Many of these youths eventually get involved with drugs and drug trafficking, facilitated by the lack of control over these communities and their status as “free-trade” zones. The report seems to present a more in-depth analysis of what Svampa discusses in her book.

The film’s evocation of factual data suggests a connection with the socio- economic and political scenario that is in the backdrop of Argentina’s deficiency in overcoming recurrent crisis that have assaulted the country over the last decades and have directly affected the socio-economic expectations for young generations. These crises lead to important socio-economic and political consequences, resulting in what Argentine anthropologist Maristela Svampa calls Sociedad Excluyente (excluding society).

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As I pointed out in the introduction, Svampa maps out the socio-economic and political transformations that occurred in Argentina over the last decades under the neoliberal turn. The 1990s, heavily influenced by a strong implementation of neoliberalism during the presidency of Carlos Menem (1989-1999), saw the many consequences of what Svampa calls excluding modernization. Among these consequences are the ones related to the job market. Many Argentines lost their jobs and many others became part of the informal work force as a strategy for survival.53 Another aspect of this process of exclusion was spatial fragmentation, especially in Buenos Aires.

Svampa comments that,

En fin, la modernización excluyente fue adoptando formas territoriales cada vez

más radicales, ilustradas de manera emblemática por el proceso de

autosegregación de las clases medias superiores, a través de la expansión de las

urbanizaciones privadas (countries, barrios privados), así como por la segregación

obligada de un amplio contingente de excluidos del modelo, reflejada en la

multiplicación de las villas de emergencia y los asentamientos. (49)

[That is, the excluding modernization took increasingly radical territorial forms,

illustrated in an emblematic way through the process of self-segregation of the

53 Sin embargo, a fines de la década del 90, el 26,7% de la población – reunida en el 18,9% de los hogares, según cifras del Indec – no percebían ingresos suficientes para acceder a la canastra básica de bienes y servicios. En los partidos del Gran Buenos Aires, donde residen aproximadamente ocho millones de personas, la pobreza creció en un 67%, porcentage dentro del cual se sitúan los ex integrantes de las clases medias, esto es, los nuevos pobres, quienes se incrementaron en un 338%. [However, in the late 90s, 26.7% of the population - gathered in 18.9% of households, according to figures from INDEC - did not have enough income to access basic goods and services. In the districts of Greater Buenos Aires, where about eight million people live, poverty grew by 67%, percentage which includes former members of the middle classes, that is, the new poor, who increased by 338%] (Svampa 141) 147

upper middle class, through the expansion of private developments (country

clubs, gated communities), as well as the forced segregation of a large contingent

of excluded from the model, reflected in the proliferation of slums and

settlements.]

The film shows the consequences of this long process of degradation of the social fabric in its depiction of this segregated space for the community in general, and more specifically for young people. Elefante Blanco makes these larger socio-spatial shifts visible to us through the recurrent use of long and extreme long shots and montage sequences. In scenes where we are exploring the villa accompanying the priests or in shots filmed with static camera, the profilmic space is frequently shown in depth in order to portray the breadth of its segregation, and, it would be fair to say, inhumane conditions. Shot compositions include a seemingly unending villa, emphasizing how many people have been marginalized. Those compositions direct our eyes towards details such as dirty roads, narrow alleys, and half-finished houses as well as distant skyscrapers, underscoring physical as well as social distances (as I have already argued). Likewise, montage sequences play a fundamental role in the exposition of the villa’s scarcity. In the scene where the priests are praying Hail Mary in their apartment inside Elefante Blanco on a rainy night, the film cuts to shots of half-finished houses, and dirty roads with what seems to be open sewage. As the prayer continues via voiceover the audio-visual juxtaposition suggests that faith is the only resource left given the inability of the state to provide a solution for the precarious situation lived by this community. Nevertheless, despite the film’s efforts to offer a denunciation of the situation, Elefante Blanco seems 148 to fall short. In addition to its reliance on the star power of Darín, the editing strategies contribute to a romantic view of displacement, particularly in this scene where the rain is emphasized (rain is used as a symbol throughout the film), which denotes sorrow, underlining a detachment of the (middle/upper class) spectator from that environment, who “gladly” does not belong there, who is just being informed (and entertained) about/exposed to a reality that exists but is kept circumscribed to a definite socio-spatial reality.

Referring to the disappearance of the universalist welfare state in the market- driven neoliberal era, Svampa also points to a transformational process of subjectivation of Argentina’s contemporary youth as a consequence of this move stating that

A la erosión de los clivajes políticos tradicionales la acompaña estrategias de

distinción cultural. Así, el proceso de subjetivación se realiza en un escenario

atravesado por la incertidumbre y la inestabilidad, prontamente naturalizado, que

impulsa a los jóvenes de los sectores populares (así como a aquellos de las clases

medias empobrecidas), a desenvolverse como verdaderos “cazadores”... en una

ciudad cada vez más caracterizada por la multiplicación de fronteras sociales, en

la cual el individuo debe procurarse recursos para sobrevivir, sin posibilidad

alguna de planificación reflexiva de la vida. En no pocos casos, la desaparición de

los marcos normativos también ha contribuido a crear una frontera difusa entre la

legalidad y la ilegalidad, en una realidad por demás híbrida en la cual se

yuxtaponen la experiencia de la desorganización social y la multiplicación de las

estrategias de sobrevivencia. (173) 149

[The erosion of traditional political cleavages is accompanied by [new] strategies

of cultural distinction. Thus, the subjective process is performed in a scenario

crossed by uncertainty and instability, promptly naturalized, which encourages

young people from the popular sectors (as well as those of the impoverished

middle classes), to develop themselves as real "hunters" ... in a city increasingly

characterized by the multiplication of social boundaries, in which the individual

must procure resources to survive, without any possibility of thoughtful planning

about the direction of one’s life. In many cases, the disappearance of regulatory

frameworks has also contributed to a fuzzy boundary between legality and

illegality, in an extremely hybrid reality in which the experience of social

disorganization and the multiplication of survival strategies are juxtaposed.]

The naturalization of the neoliberal scenario and its social consequences for Argentina, and more specifically for Buenos Aires -- that is, a generalized sense of uncertainty -- is at the core of Elefante Blanco.

This uncertainty relates to the marginalized youth depicted in the film. The film emphasizes it in the priests’ and the social worker’s tentative care towards the young people of the villa pictured in many moments throughout the film. The film portrays the involvement of the villa’s youth with drugs as consumers as well as workers who help the leaders of the villa’s drug rings. Monito, the main young character, epitomizes the young people in Svampa’s description. A dweller of the villa, he is involved with drugs and the priests try to help him by sending him to a treatment center. Nonetheless, despite the priests’ effort to help him, this initiative does not achieve permanent results culminating 150 with recidivist involvement with drugs and its collateral damages. He eventually kills an under-cover police officer who worked helping the priests in the villa. The priests did not know about the undercover role played by Cruz, the police officer who is killed. Monito ends up dying killed by a police officer when Julián and Nicolás are trying to sneak him out of the villa to take him to a hospital so he can be taken care of after been shot by the police who are looking to arrest him because of Cruz’s murder.

The film’s portrayal of Monito and the other young drug addicts (the building is a place where they hang out to use narcotics) suggests that their behavior is not only a consequence of the socio-economic situation they live in, but also an action against institutional power.

One of the ways the film represents the institutionalized Argentine state is through the presence of the police. Svampa points out that, “Sin duda, la oposición a la policía constituye uno de los elementos centrales de la ‘narrativa’ identitaria de las jóvenes generaciones” (178) [Certainly, opposition to the police is one of the central elements of identity 'narrative' of the younger generation]. There is an identification of young people, mainly the ones related to organized crime, and a fight against institutional power. This opposition constitutes an opposition to the state as repressor of youth’s freedom, and the film represents it in the scenes where the police force invades the villa enforcing its power either looking for outlaws or to repress manifestation for the right to the land. The scenes that show the police invasions include point of view shots from the perspective of

151 community dwellers that are fighting the police (to show us how they experience those incursions as transgressive and unjust).54

There is a critique of capitalist Argentine society subtending Elefante Blanco’s narrative, which evokes a sense of incompleteness throughout, starting with its title. This alludes to the inefficiency of institutionalized power. Father Julián’s pedagogical narrative about the history of the construction of the building points to the state’s failure to carry out a plan to comply with Argentina’s constitution,55 that is, to provide its citizens with decent social conditions (healthcare in the case of the building). The building’s allegorical name reflects the sense of incompleteness and burden lived by

Argentine society. Its massive unfinished structure alludes to the incompetence of

Argentina’s political system and its inability to complete its projects. Outside as well as inside shots of the building underscore this sentiment (Figures 2.13, 2.14). The characterization of Palacios as a socialist by Julián (when he tells Nicolás the history behind the building) evokes a longing sentiment, suggesting a desire to return to more humane state policies for the poor. Talking to the bishop about it right after a summit meeting with Church and government representatives, Julián says that for more than ten

54 This sentiment is also present in the soundtrack, which is manifested mainly in the cumbia villera style (although the lyrics are not identifiable in the film.) 55 “El Estado otorgará los beneficios de la seguridad social, que tendrá carácter de integral e irrenunciable. En especial, la ley establecerá: el seguro social obligatorio, que estará a cargo de entidades nacionales o provinciales, con autonomía económica y financiera, administradas por los interesados con participación del Estado, sin que pueda existir superposición de aportes; jubilaciones y pensiones móviles; la protección integral de la familia; la defensa del bien de familia, la compensación económica familiar y el acceso a una vivienda digna.” Artículo 14 Bis de la Constitución nacional. Cited in Svampa p.73 [The State shall grant the benefits of social security, which shall be integral and inalienable. In particular, the laws shall establish: compulsory social insurance, which is in charge of national or provincial entities with financial and economic autonomy, administered by the interested parties with State participation, with no overlapping of contributions; pensions and mobile pensions; comprehensive protection of the family; homestead defense, family allowances and access to decent housing.]

152 years he has been illegally occupying a construction that no government has finished

(35’40”). This comment shows his frustration with the Church’s institutionalized power and inefficiency in fighting for the rights of the destitute and its alliance with political interests (and the socio-economic elite that have been the sector that has benefited from the state’s neoliberal turn). Opening his sermon at the anniversary of Mugica’s death

Julián says, “Ustedes saben que aquellos a quienes consideramos nuestros gubernantes dominan a las naciones como si fueran sus dueños, y así los poderosos nos hacen sentir su autoridad” (53’45”) [You know that those whom we consider our leaders dominate nations as if they owned them, and thus the powerful make us feel their powerful authority]. This dominant power is exercised by the police, underscored by the scenes of police intervention in the villa.

Figure 2.13. An external shot of the unfinished building Elefante Blanco.

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Figure 2.14. Julián walking inside the building.

The film’s opening and closing shots serve to symbolize how the nation’s values

(associated here with liberation theology’s commitment to social justice) have been inverted or turned on their head. The opening scene shows an upside-down extreme close-up shot of Julián’s head in a CAT scan machine preparing the viewer to be exposed to an upside-down reality. Towards the end of the film the inverted close-up shot of Cruz in the coffin is followed by the upside-down image of the crucified Christ on the coffin’s lid, which is then covered with the Argentine flag. The film alludes to nationalism through the national flag as well as people wearing Argentina’s national soccer jersey as denunciatory of the inefficiency of the state. The film portrays it in scenes such as an early one when the priests walk through the villa towards the chapel in order to clean it

154 after the pouring rain that fell the night before, and a man passes behind them wearing the jersey following them for a while (See Figure 2.10).

Although Elefante Blanco exposes Buenos Aires’ reality and makes visible the city’s most underrepresented social stratum, and its material hardships, the homage to

Mugica’s martyrdom and the film’s aesthetics seem to undercut the film’s criticism. The film’s denunciatory efforts don’t go far enough. Rather than point viewers toward specific means to address the injustices depicted by the film, Elefante Blanco ends on a rather diffuse note of hope with a shot of Nicolás, sitting at Julián’s table, with his back to the distant Buenos Aires’ skyline. The image transmits a sense of continuity and gestures toward the work still to be done by the priests at the villa.

Medianeras

In what could be called a genre appropriation of the romantic comedy, Medianeras offers a look into the contrast between the promise of Buenos Aires’s modern built environment from the early twentieth century and the post-modern decentralized, fragmented practice of experiencing the city in the twenty-first century. I argue that in a somewhat light- hearted way, Medianeras comments on the sense of fragmentation and isolation experienced by middle-class subjects through the film’s exploration of the city’s built environment and how it is used or “practiced” by the protagonists, whose professions identify them as part of the sectors that most benefitted from the neoliberal reforms. By contrasting the modern and the postmodern city, the film underscores and critiques the latter. This distinction is played out in the mise-en-scène to delineate the new from the

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“old” city. This is also played out in the depiction of the protagonists as modern subjects who suffer from post-modern malaise, and in the aesthetics of the film itself.

Medianeras’ main characters, Martin and Mariana are professionals. He is a web designer and she is an architect. Their professions allow for the relationship the film establishes with the fractured, decentralized postmodern contemporary world and modern sentiments through the use of the computer and architecture. They afford aspects of life that are out of reach for most of the subjects at the margins such as going to restaurants, joining a private swimming pool, and doing therapy. Through the depiction of these characters’ experiences in the city the film underlines the maelstrom of the postmodern city.

While El Bonaerense and Elefante Blanco critique the elite through harsh portrayal of the city’s marginal locales and subjects, in Medianeras the critique is subtler, humorous, and the film’s aesthetics provides an in-depth exploration of the city’s built space, and the middle-class lifestyle related to the social stratus it portrays. Medianeras may be thought as a work that acquires a hybrid form of a film that incorporates characteristics of a film essay. Technical elements such as editing and the inclusion of others such as animation combined with the often present voice-over underline this characteristic that brings to the film a critique of the contemporary subject living in

Buenos Aires at the same time the film offers a contrastive look into its built environment through memory. In this sense photography combined with narration become fundamental vehicles through which the film brings together past and present to portray an unbalanced Buenos Aires of the present century.

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I consider Medianeras the quintessential city film. The film’s focus on the main characters’ daily experience in the city exploring mundane activities such as walking, underlines the film preoccupation with Buenos Aires’ city life and how its dwellers are influenced by this experience. Drawing from the works such as Michel de Certeau’s I will discuss how the film’s critique of contemporary Buenos Aires offers a look into the city’s influence on its dwellers’ subjectivity. From the works of film scholars such as

Anne Friedberg I will discuss how Medianers proposes an approach to cinema spectatorship exploring architecture at the same time it pays homage to some city films in a direct relationship with them.

(Post)modern urban space; fragmented urban life

As mentioned briefly in the introduction, Buenos Aires changed substantially over the twentieth century as part of the modernization process driven by elite interest. As outlined by the online magazine “El Furor X Buenos Aires,” among the transformations that took place in the city in the first decades of last century were the following: “…se construían subterráneos, se ensanchaban avenidas (se decía que la 9 de Julio y Rivadavia eran, respectivamente la más ancha, y la más larga del mundo)…. Surgían los rascacielos.” 56 […subway systems were built, avenues widened (it was said that the

[avenues] 9 de Julio and Rivadavia were respectively the widest and the longest in the world) .... Skyscrapers emerged]. As stated by David Harvey, “Modernism was ‘an art of the cities’,” (26) and influenced their material growth. As happened in many modernizing

56 Fervor X Buenos Aires, #5 March 2010. Accessed on 4/7/2015 157 urban areas worldwide, the construction of skyscrapers was part of the city’s material transformation early on last century. Medianeras rescues the importance of the construction of buildings for the Argentine capital throughout the film as a way to pay homage to city’s modern architecture as well as to use it as a motif to offer a critique of contemporary porteño culture. In one scene a man invites Mariana out for dinner. The first shot before showing them at the entrance of the building is a very brief medium shot of the building’s name placed on the wall at the street’s corner: COMEGA (29’06”).

Built by a German businessman, the COMEGA serves as a sign of the transnational flows of the earlier/modern era.57 At the entrance the man says that because she is an architect he thought she would enjoy having dinner at the restaurant in that building. She mentions that she knows it, but did not realize that there was a restaurant there. He replies saying that the restaurant is on the twentieth floor. The Comega is a well-known building in the city. As the aforementioned article points out, “Ubicado en la esquina sureste de Leandro

Alem y Corrientes, el Comega, construido en 1933, es una expresión inobjetable del modernismo que se imponía en el mundo.” [Located in the southeast corner of Leandro

57 In 2014 the newspaper Página 12 ran an article titled “El señor de todos.” The title refers to Alfredo Hirsch, a Jewish German hired by the Argentine company Bunge & Bom, who moved to Buenos Aires to work for this company. According to the article Bunge & Bom was “the first Argentine multinational, one of the world’s largest commodities commercialization corporations especially of soy beans….” The article points out that in the mid-1920s the company was already completely German, which indicates the influx of international capital into Argentina that was already taking place early last century. The article mentions that “…Hirsch… se transformó en el rey de los cielos de Buenos Aires construyendo entre 1931-1933 el edificio Comega (Compañía Mercantil Ganadera),… en un lugar emblemático de la city porteña, Corrientes 222, desde cuya terraza se pudo ver en 1934 la llegada del dirigible germano Graf Zepellin, en febrero de 1936 el sepelio de Carlos Gardel y en 1937 la transformación final de la angosta calle Corrientes en una avenida.” [... Hirsch… became the king of the skies of Buenos Aires building between 1931-1933 the building Comega (Livestock Trading Company), ... in a landmark of the city of Buenos Aires, Corrientes 222, from whose terrace you could see the arrival in 1934 of the German dirigible Graf Zeppelin, in February 1936 the funeral of Carlos Gardel, and in 1937 the final transformation of the narrow street in Corrientes avenue.] Página 12, 1/2/2014 by Mario Rapaport. Accessed 4/7/2015. 158

Alem and Corrientes, the Comega, built in 1933, is an undeniable expression of modernism that prevailed in the world]. A reflection of the modernizing trend of that time, the Comega became an iconic site for the city because of its functionalist architecture and the restaurant located on the upper floor. Mariana says, “Me da curiosidad ver como se ve la ciudad desde tan alto,” [I am curious to see the city from such height] suggesting both a return to the excitement caused by the possibility seeing the city from above, something that had been new for the city’s dwellers at the beginning of the century, and an affirmation of the same exhilaration and curiosity that this distinct perspectival possibility still causes in twenty-first century denizens of big cities.

Unfortunately, the buildings’ elevators that had thrilled the public in the 1930s – and had served as one of the symbols of the modernizing processes related to the fast pace cities were acquiring at the height of modern times-- do not have the same effect on Mariana.

When the elevator’s door opens she says that she has claustrophobia and does not enter.

What follows is a comic scene of Mariana and her date walking up the stairs surrounded by ivory walls (in a chivalrous gesture, the man gives up the comfort of the faster transportation, to accompany her on the stairwell). On their way up the man gets breathless and eventually decides to take the elevator to the restaurant where he will wait for her. Mariana, looks at herself in the mirror in the bathroom, and runs back downstairs.

Dinner never happens. Mariana’s decision may denote her reluctance about relationships, but the scene also demonstrates how the film uses the built environment to comment on the psychological state of the characters. Here, Mariana desire (to relive the heights of modernist greatness) is overcome by her fear of entrapment.

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The film also refers to another of Buenos Aires’ important modern buildings in a scene a few minutes later. A long shot pictures Mariana sitting on a bench under a big, leafy tree across from the Kavanagh building. She says in a voice-over that before developing a phobia for elevators, she used to be visitors’ guide in that building: “Viajaba sin problemas por los quince ascensores y los treinta y un pisos del rascacielos más bonito de la ciudad. La construcción de hormigón más grande del mundo a fines de los años treinta.” [I had no problem traveling [up and down] on the fifteen elevators and thirty-one floors of the city’s most beautiful skyscraper. The world’s biggest concrete building by the end of the 1930s] As she contemplates it, she narrates the story of its construction over shots of black-and-white photographs of the building and the families involved in the story (the Kavanagh’s and the Anchorena’s). She says, “El palacio de los

Anchorena quedaba del otro lado del parque y planeaban construir uno nuevo junto a la basílica. Corina Kavanagh vendió tres estancias y ordenó la construcción de un rascacielos con un único objetivo: tapar la fachada de la basílica e impedir que los

Anchorena pudieran verla desde la ventana de su palacio.” [The palace of the Anchorena was across the park and they planned to build a new one next to the Basilica. Corina

Kavanagh sold three properties and ordered the construction of a skyscraper with a single goal: to cover the façade of the basilica and prevent that the Anchorena could see it from the window of their palace.] These sequences demonstrate the film’s effort to reanimate the memory of the growth, development, and modernization of Buenos Aires in the first half of the twentieth century, as is equally evident in the opening scene that I will discuss next.

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Buenos Aires’ built environment (architecture and urban layout) and its social implications for contemporary, postmodern life in the metropolis are at the core of

Medianera’s critique. The film also explores Buenos Aires’ more recent material transformations, providing an ample depiction of the city’s new spatial arrangement.

Laura Podalsky gives an account of the growth of Buenos Aires high-rise apartment buildings in the second half of the twentieth century. This growth entailed a new configuration to the central areas of the city. She points out that, “After 1955, a new configuration of spatial, social, and economic forces emerged and became increasingly visible after [President Arturo] Frondizi took power [in 1958]. One of the earliest signs appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when new buildings and changing material practices helped to reconstruct the public-private divide that had seemingly been breached by Peronism.” (120) And this trend continued through the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century.

The film opens with approximately one hundred and ten shots of centrally located

Buenos Aires’ buildings, underscoring the palimpsestic density of this area of the city and detailing a merging of modern and post-modern architecture styles (Figures 15-20). This opening evokes David Harvey’s discussion on postmodernism in the city. He points out that in contrast to modernism, postmodernism cultivates a notion of the urban fabric as necessarily fragmented as in a palimpsest of past forms superimposed upon each other, and a collage of present uses, many of which may be ephemeral.58 Harvey also says that,

“Eschewing the idea of progress, postmodernism abandons all sense of historical

58 The condition of postmodernity (66) 161 continuity and memory, while simultaneously developing an incredible ability to plunder history and absorb whatever it finds there as some aspect of present.” (1989: 54) The shots vary from extreme long ones depicting the city’s skyline at dawn or construction workers working at the top of buildings, to medium shots and close-ups detailing the great variety of the buildings in the city’s central area. This thorough and ample visual account of the city’s spatial formation underlines the film’s preoccupation with the urban scene and the effects the material city has on its dwellers. Martin’s accompanying voice- over is worth citing here at length for its critique of the contemporary relationship between the material city and its dwellers, of capitalist interest over people’s wellbeing, his chronicling of the social stratification, and the effects this dynamic has on peoples’ subjectivity. He says:

Buenos Aires crece de manera descontrolada e imperfecta. Es una ciudad

superpoblada en un país desierto. Una ciudad en la que se yerguen miles y miles y

miles de edificios sin ningún criterio. Al lado de uno muy alto, hay uno muy bajo.

Al lado de uno irracionalista, hay uno irracional. Al lado de uno de estilo francés

hay otro sin ningún estilo. Probablemente estas irregularidades nos reflejen

perfectamente. Irregularidades estéticas y éticas. Estos edificios que se suceden

sin ninguna lógica demuestran una falta total de planificación. Exactamente igual

es nuestra vida. Llevamos haciendo sin tener la más mínima idea de cómo

queremos que nos quede. Vivimos como si estuviésemos de paso en Buenos

Aires. Somos los creadores de la cultura del inquilino. Los edificios son cada vez

más chicos para darle lugar a nuevos edificios, más chicos aún. Los 162 departamentos se miden en ambientes, y van desde los excepcionales cinco ambientes como el con terraza, playroom, dependencia de servicio, baulera, hasta el mono ambiente o caja de zapatos. Los edificios, como casi todas las cosas pensadas por el hombre, están hechos para que nos diferenciemos los unos de los otros. Existe un frente y un contra frente, están los pisos altos y los bajos. Los privilegiados son identificados con la letra A; excepcionalmente la B. Cuánto más progresa el abecedario, menos categoría tiene la vivienda. Las vistas y la luminosidad son promesas que raras veces coinciden con la realidad. ¡¿Qué se puede esperar de una ciudad que le da la espalda a su rio?! Estoy convencido de que las separaciones y los divorcios, la violencia familiar, el exceso de canales de cable, la incomunicación, la falta de deseo, la abulia, la depresión, los suicidios, las neurosis, los ataques de pánico, la obesidad, las contracturas, la inseguridad, el hipocondrismo, el estrés y el sedentarismo son responsabilidad de los arquitectos y empresarios de la construcción. De estos males, salvo el suicidio, padezco todos.

[Buenos Aires grows uncontrollably and imperfectly. It is a crowded city in a desert country; a city in which thousands and thousands and thousands of buildings are built without any criteria. Next to a very high, there is a very low one. Next to one irrational, there is one irrational. Next to one of French style there is another with no style. These irregularities probably reflect us perfectly; aesthetic and ethical irregularities. These buildings that follow no logic demonstrate a total lack of planning. Just like our life. We've been living without 163 having the slightest idea of what we want. We live as if we were passing through

Buenos Aires. We are the creators of the culture of the tenant. The buildings are becoming smaller to make room for new buildings, even smaller. The apartments are measured in environments ranging from the exceptional five environments such as the ones with terrace, playroom, servant room, storage, to the single room or shoebox monkey. The buildings, like most things designed by man, are made so we can differentiate us from each other. There is a front and a counter facing.

There are the high rise and low rise. The privileged are identified with the letter

A; B exceptionally. The more the alphabet progresses the less category is the apartment. The views and brightness are promises that rarely match reality. What can you expect from a city that turns its back on its river?! I am convinced that the separations and divorce, family violence, excess of cable channels, isolation, lack of desire, apathy, depression, suicide, neurosis, panic attacks, obesity, contractures, insecurity, hypochondriacs, stress and a sedentary lifestyle are the responsibility of architects and construction companies. Of these evils, except suicide, I suffer all.]

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Figure 2.15. Central Buenos Aires shot with a telephoto lens. The Obelisc in the center of the shot.

Figure 2.16. Central Buenos Aires evidencing modern-style buildings and the sidewalls.

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Figure 2.17. Buildings in construction in central Buenos Aires.

Figure 2.18. Glassed-walls building reflecting a modern-style one.

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Figure 2.19. An unfinished by-pass.

Figure 2.20. A postmodern building in central Buenos Aires. 167

At the end of this opening scene we are introduced to Martín, sitting on his chair in front of his computer in his dark room. This monologue sets the tone for the film’s critiques and discussions of the contemporary Buenos Aires’ urban scene. This is a critical view of a city that some (or many) porteños would nostalgically call “the Paris of Latin

America,”59 but Martin’s description suggests that its contemporary texture overshadows its grandiose past to paint a picture of its built decadence. Adrián Gorelik points out that,

“Las sucesivas norteamericanización y latinoamericanización de Buenos Aires desde los años setenta han dejado aquel carácter europeo en el lugar de la ilusión o la nostalgia.”

(71) [The successive northamericanization and latinamericanization of Buenos Aires since the nineteen seventies have left that European character behind as an illusion or a sign of nostalgia]

By emphasizing the confusing, chaotic juxtapositions that characterize the built environment of the contemporary Buenos Aires, the opening sequence makes Mariana’s subsequent desire to see the city from above –to make it “map-able and knowable” – entirely understandable. Her line seems, I believe, to dialogue with De Certeau’s oft-cited seminal article “Walking in the City.” He says in its introduction:

Seeing Manhattan from the 110th floor of the World Trade Center. Beneath the

haze stirred up by the winds, the urban island, a sea in the middle of the sea, lifts

59 Adrián Gorelik says, “Pero la representación de que Buenos Aires es la ciudad ‘más européa’ de América – es decir, la idea de que aquella ambición finalmente ha sido cumplida – se formula entre el Centenario y la década de 1930, y cristaliza recién como sentido común hacia la década de 1950, marcando el horizonte figurativo de toda (auto)representación del carácter de la ciudad.” (74) [But the representation that Buenos Aires is the 'more European' city in America - that is, the idea that this ambition has finally been fulfilled – was formulated between the Centennial and the 1930s, and crystallizes just like common sense towards the 1950, marking the horizon of all figurative (self) representation of the character of the city.] 168

up the skyscrapers over Wall Street, sinks down at Greenwich, then rises again to

the crest of Midtown, quietly passes over Central Park and finally undulates off

into the distance beyond Harlem. A wave of verticals. Its agitation is momentarily

arrested by vision. The gigantic mass immobilized before the eyes. It is

transformed into a texturology in which extremes coincide – extremes of ambition

and degradation, brutal oppositions of races and styles, contrasts between

yesterday’s buildings, already transformed into trash cans, and today’s urban

irruptions that block out its space. (91)

Towards the end of the film, Manhattan is introduced through a direct correlation between Medianeras and Woody Allen’s cinema (as I will discuss later, making this connection the more fertile) and, I argue, Buenos Aires as a global city with its similarly phallic verticality stressed in the film’s opening scene.

Medianeras is set in the northern sector of the city. The film informs us of the specific address of the two main characters, Martin and Mariana, in a screen split shot with four equal parts: Avenida Santa Fé, 1105 and 1183, respectively, located a few blocks from the border of the Recoleta Neighborhood close to one of Buenos Aires’ iconic thoroughfares, Avenida 9 de Julio, known for being the world’s widest street. This toponomy evokes an important symbolic and material meaning for viewers familiar with the city. As noted by De Certeau, “…names [of streets/places] make themselves available to the diverse meanings given them by passers-by.” (104) In the case of the Avenida

Santa Fé (literally Holy Faith Avenue) it evokes a socio-economic “topos.” The Avenida

Santa Fé is a thoroughfare that connects the downtown to some of the northern, most 169 affluent neighborhoods such as Recoleta, Palermo, and Belgrano. The part of the avenue located in the Recoleta neighborhood is known for being a shopping area for the well-off with its many upscale shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues located on both sides of it making it a “shopping mall/entertainment area.” Speaking of the renovations of that neighborhood that took place in the 1990s, Podalsky mentions that, “The Recoleta neighborhood provides a particularly apt example of how new public spaces serve as places of social differentiation” (234). In that period, the colonial structures were remodeled into a museum space; and adjoined a new “design” complex. The film uses the location of Martin and Mariana’s residences to situate them as the outgrowth of the reformulation of the city coincident with neoliberal reforms. These characteristics determine a specific socio-economic stratus that the film explores through the interactions of the main characters with it.

The neighborhood’s social and material configuration also promotes walkability.

It allows the film to demonstrate how Martin enjoys urban life –in spite of his disgust over the chaotic juxtaposition of buildings with different architectural styles. In highlighting the walkability of this area of the city, the film suggests that there are certain

“modern” pleasures that still exist, and celebrates pedestrian life by lingering on the pleasures of being a flanêur. De Certeau refers to the ordinary practitioners of the city saying that, “they live ‘down below,’ below the thresholds at which visibility begins.

They walk – an elementary form of this experience of the city; they are walkers,

Wandersmänner, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an urban ‘text’ they write without being able to read it” (93).

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Right in the beginning of the film Martin says, “No viajo en colectivos, ni taxis, mucho menos subtes, y ni que hablar en avión. Solo me desplazo sobre mis pies” [I do not travel on buses, or taxis, much less on subways, and let alone by plane. I just travel on foot] (4’50”) His comment underlines two aspects of the relationship of urban residents and the urban landscape of contemporary Buenos Aires. First, the walkability of this region is underlined by the many scenes showing Martin as well as Mariana walking in the city, most probably around their neighborhood. In one scene, when Martin is going to the swimming pool at night, a traveling shot tracks alongside him to capture the rhythm of the walking citizen; as he passes by shops and restaurants, his voice-over transmits his meandering thoughts as he ruminates about the advantages and disadvantages of swimming.

While celebrating the simple pleasures of walking in one’s neighborhood, the film also underscores that such past-times do not promote neighborly solidarity or a sense of community. This is clear in a number of ways, including the depiction of simultaneous tragedies that Martin and Mariana experience separately (even though they are near each other). The scene (8’51”) begins with short panning shots following the characters. It then switches to over the shoulder shots using a hand-held camera depicting Mariana and

Martin walking on a sidewalk in opposite directions in what seems to be their neighborhood given its clean, wooded street. Suddenly, a dog commits suicide by jumping out of a balcony right in front of Mariana and at the same time a man is hit by a car in front of Martin. Hand-held shots provide us with a notion of simultaneity and their perspective of the street. Nonetheless, although the shots show people walking, passing

171 by, the film suggests that the Buenos Aires depicted does not promote people’s active interaction in public space. The film’s emphasis on sidewalks (rather than, for example, public parks) also emphasizes the isolation of individuals from each other. There is an absence of urban sites in the film that would help create active public contact (such as the bean in Chicago or the sort). This suggests a lack of preoccupation with human interactions in terms of urban planning, at least in some areas of the city. The interaction is only passive, suggesting spatial-social dissociation, symptomatic of a socially fractured society under the postmodern subjectivity, fragmented reality of the twenty-first century, the second aspect I wanted to highlight. This sentiment is underlined through aesthetic elements such as the inclusion of the animation “Where is Waldo,” which is one of

Mariana’s hobbies from childhood and one of the film’s marks. She mentions that

“Where is Wally” (the way it is called in Argentina) “es la razón de mi fobia a las multitudes” [is the reason of my phobia to the crowds]. The animation shows the crowded street with passers-by crossing paths on the sidewalk with no direct interaction.

The film’s utilization of the city’s architecture to comment on urban life culminates in its positioning of the medianera (sidewall) as master trope, as a symbol of social fragmentation, and at the same time, a potential site of urban renewal. In a scene towards the end of the film, Mariana gives a definition of the terms in voice-over as we see dozens of shots of medianeras of all sizes. Her description touches on many of

Buenos Aires’ socio-political and economic contemporary issues as well as on culturally ingrained manifestations that are part of the city dwellers’ mindset reflected in their practices. She says:

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Todos los edificios, absolutamente todos, tienen una cara inútil, inservible, que no da ni al frente ni al contra-frente: la medianera, superficies enormes que nos dividen y nos recuerdan el paso del tiempo, el smog y la mura de la ciudad. Las medianeras muestran nuestro costado más miserable, reflejan la inconstancia, las grilletas, las soluciones provisorias, es la basura que escondemos debajo de la alfombra. Solo nos acordamos de ellas excepcionalmente, cuando vulneradas pelas inclemencias del tiempo dejan filtrar sus reclamos. Las medianeras se han convertido en un medio más de la publicidad, que en raras excepciones han logrado embellecerla… Aunque últimamente nos recuerdan la crisis económica que nos dejó así: desocupados. Contra toda la opresión que significa vivir en esas cajas de zapatos, existe una salida, una vía de escape; ilegal, como todas las vías de escape. En clara contravención a las normas del código de planificación urbana se abren unas minúsculas, irregulares, irresponsables ventanas que permiten que unos milagrosos rayos de luz iluminen la oscuridad en la que vivimos.

[All buildings, absolutely all of them, have a useless, worthless face, which is neither in the front nor in the back: the sidewall are huge areas that divide us and remind us of the passage of time, the smog and filth. Sidewalls show our miserable side, reflecting the inconstancy, the cracks, the provisional solutions; they are the garbage we hide under the rug. We remember them only exceptionally, when eroded by the weather its ads filter through. Sidewalls have become another medium for ads, which in rare cases have made them beautiful ...

Although lately they remind us of the economic crisis that left us like this: 173

unemployed. Against all the oppression of living in these shoeboxes, there is a

way out, an escape; illegal, as all escapes are. In clear violation of the norms of

the urban planning code some people open tiny, irregular, irresponsible windows

that allow some miraculous rays of light to light up the darkness we live in.]

This is clearly not only a definition of the medianera, but rather, a critique of Buenos

Aires social and political scene. As demonstrated in this sequence, Medianeras presents the sidewall as a space that represents late capitalist, consumer society, both its utopic promises and deleterious consequences. And, through that metaphor, the film shows us the less recognized side of neoliberal policies, the spaces that showcase advertisements and seduce consumers with attractive goods. Symptomatically, the advertisements shown mostly have words in English suggesting that Buenos Aires is a globalized city. The medianera also becomes a register for social separation; and those marginalized by neoliberal reforms. One of the shots of a sidewall shown during Mariana’s comments has a deteriorated Menem’s campaign ad showing the passing of time as well as pointing to the political and economic crisis of the last years (Figure 2.21). It serves as a metaphor for how Menem’s promises that neoliberal policies would bring wealth to all were merely an illusion. The reference to the unemployed might suggest that the medianeras are used for job advertisements or graffiti.

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Figure 2.21. Menem's 1995 presidential campaign's ad on the sidewall.

Figure 2.22. Martín on the window he opened in his apartment on the sidewall.

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Figure 2.23. Martín's and Mariana's apartments and their respective "provisional" windows.

Medianeras and the city-film

As I mentioned, Medianeras is a prototypical representative of a city film. Besides offering a critique of Buenos Aires’ contemporary urban scene and praising and commenting on its architectural past, the film explores cinema from its origins to the already classic contemporary city films. The film makes reference to technical elements of cinema as well as to direct examples of contemporary films. In its opening scene the film alludes to cinema’s origins: photography. Photographing Buenos Aires is a practice that goes back to the first decades of the twentieth century with figures such as Horacio

Coppola. As pointed out by Gilles Deleuze, “We can always refer to shadow puppets, or the very earliest projection systems. But in fact, the determining conditions of the cinema are the following: not merely the photo, but the snapshot […]; the equidistance of 176 snapshots; the transfer of this equidistance on to a framework which constitutes the ‘film’

[…].” (5) The dozens of (snap)shots in the opening scene, and the same technique repeated throughout the film, evoke the format of an album of the city (one that Horacio

Coppola could have created). Early in the film Martin mentions that his psychologist told him to use photography as a therapeutic practice to ward off his phobia of the crowded metropolis. He then goes on to take pictures of Buenos Aires.60

Defining cinema Deleuze says, “The any-instant-whatever is the instant which is equidistant from another. We can therefore define the cinema as the system which reproduces movement by relating it to the any-instant-whatever.” (6) As it is known, movies provide an illusion of movement. The movement we see on the screen is an illusion made possible by an interacting optical and perceptual phenomenon: persistence of vision. Between these two equidistant points there is an interval, a black screen.

Medianeras uses the black screen in various moments suggesting its reference to cinema through this phenomenon. The film is divided into segments comprised by the four seasons, a reference to the passing of time. Between each interval there is a black screen that goes on for about two seconds. The same technique is used in a few other instances as well underscoring the importance of this phenomenon for cinema.

Besides this allusion to cinema through theoretical/technical elements, the film provides us with direct examples of some directors and films mainly from the last decades. The first reference is to the French director Jacques Tati.61 62 In an early scene

60 Gustavo Taretto has declared that when he was a kid his father gave him a camera and he started taking pictures of the city. 61 Gustavo Taretto declared in an interview I did with him that Tati is one of his favorite directors. 177

Martin is talking about his phobia of the city and mentions his survival backpack where, among other things, he carries two of Tati’s films. A bird’s eye shot shows all the things he mentions neatly organized on the floor, and among them a DVD of Tati’s Play Time

(1967) (Figure 24). Examining Tati’s Mon Oncle and Playtime Nezar AlSayyad points out that Tati developed a screen alter ego named Monsieur Hulot. And he notes that “His

[Tati’s] typical hero was a somewhat confused, apolitical middle-class male lost in a city,

Paris, which was becoming increasingly like other cities in the world.” He also comments on the new Paris represented in Play Time noting that

This is a Paris without monuments except for the ones reflected ephemerally on

glass doors or windows of its suburb as they capture a distant reality. It is a Paris

that has disappeared to become part of the blurry and anonymous urban edge. In

this Paris, citizens live in glass boxes that resemble stacks of television sets piled

up on top of each other in a store window. (100-101)

I will explore the importance of glass and the glass boxes in Medianeras later. Talking about Jacques Tati, a member of the Situationist International, Laurent Marie says that

Play Time is “a film for which he [Tati] devised not only a building but a whole town,”

(257) and he also mentions that “Play Time has since often been considered an avant- garde film mostly for its mise-en-scène ….” (257). Medianeras’s citation of Tati suggests

62 François Penz writes, “The French mime and music-hall artist turned film-maker Jacques Tati, made six films from 1949 to m1973. He is interesting firstly as a chronicler (a witness) of the architecture of the post-war period, secondly as a critic of it, but no less importantly as a humorous observer of its effect on the culture and on the individual” (62) Penz also points out that “André Bazin gave Tati the intellectual credentials he needed; Tati was not just a clown any more but somebody who had to be taken seriously, which was of course important if you were an independent film-maker.” (63) 178 a parallel between its somewhat light-hearted critique of the alienating city and Tati’s work. This parallelism implies that those films help Martin deal with his phobia. The films offer a diagnosis of the modern city in a humorous way.

Figure 2.24. Martín's panic attack survival kit displayed on the floor.

Medianeras’ mise-en-scène plays a crucial role in its metacinematic commentary, as it is full of objects related to films. Martin’s apartment is surrounded by references to

Hollywood cinema starting with a big toy of Buzz Lightyear, the space character of John

Lessester’s animation film Toy Story (1995), placed on a piece of furniture among other toys such as Batman and Frankenstein. There is also a sign by his TV that reads, “The force is with you.” This expression is not the only reference to George Lucas’ Star Wars’

(1977). In one scene Martin is in his apartment playing with the iconic Star Wars’s light

179 sword in the dark, and in another one Mariana is dressing mannequins that are wearing

Darth-Vader-style white masks in a window display. In another reference to Hollywood cinema Mariana’s ex-boyfriend leaves a message on her answering machine mentioning that “la película de Bill Murray y la marmota,” [the film with Bill Murray and the groundhog] will be on TV, referring to Harold Ramis’ Groundhog day (1993). This points to the immense influence of US culture on middle-class Argentines.

The dialogue with cinema and more specifically with city films is more explicitly referenced through Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979). It is on TV and both Martin and

Mariana are watching it, each one in their own apartment. Shots of their TV sets show a shot reverse shot dialogue of Isaac (Woody Allen) and Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) with subtitles in Spanish then cuts to two shots of New York’s skyline (Figure 25). As I have mentioned, there is a direct correlation between the verticality of the many shots of

Buenos Aires’ buildings and that of Manhattan’s skyline phallic, and iconic image in this scene. Medianeras pictures Martin’s and Mariana’s emotional reaction to the film through close-ups of them weeping. This is one of several instances in which the film, through showing Mariana and Martin doing similar activities “at the same time,” shows us that they should be a couple even though each is alone in the big city.

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Figure 2.25. Woody Allen's Manhattan playing on TV. By the TV, Star Wars’s “The force is with you.”

This interest in highlighting Martin’s and Mariana’s reaction to Manhattan suggests that Medianeras also wants to comment on (cinema) spectatorship. This is also evident in the ubiquitous references to display windows, which the main characters pass by or work on. Before exploring how the film utilizes this architectural element I find it important to do some digression about this thematic element in order to contextualize it within its use in Medianeras.

Anne Friedberg traces the importance of glass technology development for the commodified society of the late nineteenth century onward dating back to the “optical revolution” in the seventeenth century in France. It brought great transformations in architecture for the consumer society that was taking form by creating a new visual system. Nineteenth century Paris saw the proliferation of the consumer-oriented gaze 181 instrument par excellence: the arcades. This glassed, quintessential synecdochical referent of the modern metropolis, poetically observed by Baudelaire and deeply analyzed by Walter Benjamin in his monumental unfinished The Arcades Project, transformed the life in the capital of the nineteenth century spreading it to other places in

Europe and beyond. Benjamin quotes the Illustrated Guide to Paris, which reads, “These arcades, a recent invention of industrial luxury, are glass roofed, marble-paneled corridors extending through whole blocks of buildings… the arcade is a city, a world in miniature, in which customers will find everything they need.” (873) And Friedberg points out that, “The arcades (or passages) reorganized public life in Paris between the revolution of 1789 and World War I…. [W]alking in pre-Haussmann Paris was difficult due to narrow streets and the lack of sidewalks. The arcade compensated for this lack: it provided a public interior for strolling.” (1993: 68) Besides transforming the everyday practice of walking and seeing, it became the mark of capitalist commerce and trade.

The transparency provided by glass made possible the creation of the window display, the arcades’ main visual attraction that made possible a new way of looking, an architectural element created to frame the gaze of passers-by towards commodities elaborately displayed. Friedberg points out that, “The shop window was the proscenium for visual intoxication, the site of seduction for consumer desire.” (1993: 65) She refers to the work of L. Frank Baum who in 1900 wrote The Wizard of Oz and also published The

Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows, a treatise on window display. According to

Friedberg, Baum pointed out that, “A window display called ‘the vanishing lady’ used a live female model who, at intervals, would disappear into a drapery-covered pedestal and

182 reappear with a new hat, gloves, or shawl. Female mannequins, posed in static seduction, were women made safe under glass, like animals in the zoo.” (1993: 65)

Medianeras emphasizes the window display as a metaphor for Mariana’s (and for contemporary Buenos Aires dwellers’) entrapped, boxed life and for cinema spectatorship. The film shows many scenes of Mariana decorating the displays, changing mannequins, taking parts of mannequins home with her, washing them, talking to them as her only interlocutors and “having sex” with them in a demonstration of her solitude, a symptom of postmodern era. In a scene towards the end Mariana is sitting on a chair on the left corner inside a window display on a spring morning holding a mannequin’s hand detached from its body contemplating the world outside. Some passers-by look at her, probably intrigued by such a displacement, while others do not. Mariana says in voice- over that, “Solo la luz de una mañana tan brillante me dejo ver con claridad el reflejo.

Tarde, como siempre, me di cuenta de que la que estaba en vidriera era yo”63 [Only the light of so shiny a spring morning let me see clearly the reflection. Late, as usual, I realized that the one who was in the window shop was me]. Looking through the glass she sees herself reflected on the glass display of another shop on the other side of the street. In this scene editing accentuates the relationship between the window shop and spectatorship. Long shots situate Mariana looking through the glass underscoring the horizontality of the window suggesting its reflective reference to the screen. Then in a medium shot she looks straight at the camera, a composition that suggests that she is

63 François Penz notes that “Tati uses glass as the ultimate symbol of modernism which contributes further to spatial ambiguity… In one scene in particular Tati uses to great effect the theme of glass and reflection: we see Hulot trying to find Mr Giffard and they both get confused by the glass reflections” (67) 183 looking at the spectator who sees her in the window shop and through this reflexive realization she changes her behavior. The film suggests that looking/spectatorship can help us recognize something in ourselves that we had overlooked.

Friedberg points out that

Baum's conception of the show window seems to bear a clear analogy to the

cinema screen. A tableau is framed and as it is placed behind glass it is made

inaccessible. From the middle of the nineteenth century, as if in a historical relay

of looks, the shop window succeeded the mirror as a site of identity construction,

and then – gradually – the shop window was displaced and incorporated by the

cinema screen. Cinematic spectation, a further instrumentalization of this

consumer gaze, produced paradoxical effects on the newfound social mobility of

the flaneuse. The analogy between the shop window and the cinema screen has

been suggested by a range of film historians and theorists. Charles Eckert, Jeanne

Allen, Mary Ann Doane, and Jane Gaines have all invoked "window shopping" as

an apt paradigm for film spectatorship. "Window shopping'' implies a mode of

consumer contemplation; a speculative regard to the mise-en-scene of the display

window without the commitment to enter the store or to make a purchase. Cinema

spectatorship relies on an equally distanced contemplation: a tableau, framed and

inaccessible, not behind glass, but on the screen. Seen in the context of the

following architectural and social history, cinematic spectatorship can be

described as emerging from the social and psychic transformations that the

arcades – and the consequent mobility of flanerie – produced (1993: 66) 184

Medianeras clearly evokes the twin modes of spectatorship and association with cinema through the window display.

The film also explores another type of spectatorial relationship through references to the computer screen and the graphic operational systems that transformed the way users interact with on-screen “windows” in a fragmented way. In delineating Martin’s profession as web designer, the film situates the spectator within the world of computers and virtual screens. He says that he does everything on the internet. He buys all sorts of things, he chats, has sex, listens to music, watches films suggesting a state of alienation and isolation characteristic of the twentieth-first century consumer society. This is a reference to a new type of flâneur, one that walks the cyber world through a virtual gaze.

The computer is ubiquitously present in the film. Close-ups of the computer’s screen underline the presence of the computer screen and the possibility it allows for opening many different windows and worlds at the same time. Anne Friedberg mentions that

The window’s metaphoric boundary is no longer the singular frame of perspective

– as beholders of multiple screen “windows,” we now see the world in spatially

and temporally fractured frames, through “virtual windows” that rely more on the

multiple and simultaneous than on the singular and sequential (2009: 243)

The film utilizes the spatial and temporal fracture as a reference to contemporary cinema and the different modes of spectatorship that it allows. This fractured sentiment is experienced through the multiple possibilities opened by the portable screen and virtual windows.

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Medianeras recognizes the ways computer technologies promise to increase human interactions, while expressing skepticism about the actual ability to do so. In the next to last sequence. Mariana decides to chat on the internet for the first time and, coincidently, under fake names, chats with Martin. When Martin is about to give his phone number to her the light in the neighborhood goes off. After much frustration from both, they just log off their computers and resign themselves to their solitude.

Ultimately, after juxtaposing these different types of displays/screens (films on television, shop windows, computers) and their attendant modes of spectatorship, the film favors the “old-fashioned” window as the only mechanism that enables us to see each other, to recognize similarities between ourselves and our fellow citizens. The window is a ubiquitous presence throughout the film –one that challenges and resists the barriers erected by sidewalls. Even Mariana and Martin (in clear violation of the norms) decide to add windows to their apartments, resulting in brighter private, interior spaces. And this is what ultimately leads them to each other. .The day after their aborted hook-up on the computer, Mariana goes to the window that she opened on the sidewall and looking towards the street sees Martin with his dog on the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

He is dressed exactly like her “Waldo.” She then runs to the elevator, goes downstairs and meet him.

As I have argued Medianeras offers a critique of postmodern Buenos Aires and the consequences of its fragmented material and social environment, utilizing architecture as its axial motif. The film’s discussion of some of the implications of living in a city that grows randomly and incessantly, from the point of view of the middle class offers a

186 contrastive look into the ways in which urban planning and cultural practices influence the city’s dwellers’ subjectivity. The film’s direct references and homage to cinema contributes to a dialogue with other films that thematically explore the city as an avenue to discuss larger socio-economic and political issues.

Conclusion

The three Argentine films I analyzed in this chapter provide an overview and a critique of

Buenos Aires and contemporary urban life during the twenty-first century. Through my analysis I mapped out some of the ways in which these films, as cultural forms, engage critically in dialogues with the city as a site of socio-economic, political, and material practices that reflect how these interactions shape, transform, and determine its dwellers’ subjectivities.

Trapero’s films provide us with a denunciatory view of peripheral areas of the city and how material as well as social conditions demarcate their dwellers’ experience within the urban fabric under the aegis or as a consequence of neoliberal rule. Both El

Bonaerense and Elefante Blanco show a preoccupation with the destitute and offer a critique of institutionalized power as the root of an increasingly polarized society. The former presents the police force as a destabilized institution epitomizing the Argentine state and the state of the nation. The latter presents two facets of the Catholic Church; one that looks after the poor through its priests, and another one that is shown both physically and institutionally distant from its objective, that is, the destitute, and its alliance with state politics. In neither case Trapero does present a sign of possible improvement for

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Argentina’s, and more specifically Buenos Aires’ dire socio-economic and political situation suggesting a perpetuation of a crisis that has ravaged that society for decades.

Public and social institutions are bankrupt, with few particular exceptions as in the case of the priests. And the destitute are left to their own fate.

Medianeras on the other hand, although presenting a critique of Buenos Aires’s contemporary fabric, does it from the locale and the point of view of the middle-class.

Through the motif of architecture the film shows and comments on the disorganized situation of urban planning as well as the subterfuges used by local dwellers to dribble the law in order to have a little more light in their lives. The film depicts a socio- economic sector that also suffered the consequences of the crisis, but at a different level.

The film characters have a decent life style and show awareness of the causes of the socio-economic and political difficulties. The city affects them subjectively but in a different way, and they have a way to cope with it, an exit through for instance psychoanalysis.

The three films offer a comparative and contrastive look into Buenos Aires fabric.

Together they provide a distinctive geographical as well as social map of the city.

Bottom of Form

188

Chapter 3: Contemporary Brazilian and Argentine cinema: the (re)construction of São

Paulo and Buenos Aires’s urban imaginary

In the prior two chapters I offered an in-depth analysis of three representative films from each country. In my study I demonstrated how these films presented critiques of contemporary urban life in São Paulo and Buenos Aires. The aftermath of neoliberal reforms that deeply affected these countries appear as a framework of these critiques, positing common socio-economic and political issues. The films underline some pivotal socio-economic and political facets of these consequences ranging from structural deficiencies in the built environment to unemployment, seen from the perspective of the destitute, but also, offering a critique from the viewpoint of the middle class as in Linha de Passe, O Invasor, and Medianeras.

In this chapter I will bring these films together under thematic sections in order to analyze the role of these contemporary films in the (re)construction of a shared urban imaginary of São Paulo and Buenos Aires. In their study of cultures of circulation and urban imaginary Edward LiPuma and Thomas Koelble note that

[t]he urban imaginary… is the enabling sociosemiotic matrix within which those

that inhabit the city imagine and act as urban-making collective agents. But more

than that, the imaginary is a volatility of changing speeds. The imaginary 189

transforms depending on the ebb and flow of circulations, most often prompted by

crises such as the implosion of governance and escalating violence. (155, 156)

The chapter will touch on such aspects of the urban imaginary, and in the process it will explore the roles of both the state and the market in reconstructing the urban landscape in the era of globalization.

In the first section, I investigate how the Brazilian and Argentine films register similar phenomena that respond to contemporary public debates about issues such as violence in the urban sphere appearing in some of the main newspapers based in São

Paulo and Buenos Aires. In this section I mainly concentrate on Os Inquilinos and

Elefante Blanco and whether they offer a contestatory view of these public debates or replicate them. Focusing particularly on these two films allows me to identify significant differences in their approach to similar topics. It is interesting to note, for example, that while Bianchi presents a more acid critique (grounded in his ideological ideas) of the urban environment, Trapero tempers his in a more romanticized and commercial way. I also place the films in relation to Trapero’s and Bianchi’s larger oeuvre to see how/if their representation of the city has changed over time.

In the subsequent section I turn to a discussion of São Paulo’s and Buenos Aires’ built environment. I look at how the films comment (both implicitly and explicitly) on the reformulation of the contemporary city by state and private entities. I compare the filmic representations of the city to state and private interventions (renovations/degradation

/gentrification/…) in the urban environment. In this section I focus mainly on O Invasor and Medianeras in order to verify how these films look at (the lack of) state and private 190 initiatives towards solutions for the problems faced by these cities’ dwellers at the same time they offer a critique of the relationship between private and public sectors. This section also expands on the concept of density related to the built environment that I briefly mentioned in chapter two, in relation to Medianeras.

The third and final section deepens discussions on the circulation of bodies in the city that I briefly addressed in the previous chapters. In this section I bring all the films together in order to explore how the films portray bodies’ dynamics in their movement through the city. Based on the works of scholars such as Lefebvre and De Certeau I argue that the films depict the production of urban space as being socially constructed, determined by class differences.

Entrapment, alienating space, and violence: where cinema meets public debate

In his 2002 article “Toward New Imaginaries: An Introduction,” cultural critic Dilip

Parameshwar Gaonkar discusses the emergence of new imaginaries, drawing on transformations that occurred in the world in the late eighties and the nineties, and intensified mainly in the new millennium such as the growth of globalization. These transformations have led to what scholars such as Arjun Appadurai have called multiple modernities. Gaonkar points out that, “The idea of the public sphere, as elaborated by

Jürgen Habermas, also drew attention to the fact that new forms of subjectivity necessary for the development of democratic public criticism arise in and through circulation of discourses in multiple genres, such as epistolary novels, literary magazines, and newspapers” (2). In an effort to chart those discourses that influenced emergent

191 subjectivities in São Paulo and Buenos Aires during a similar period, this section starts by discussing a few articles from major newspapers in both cities that touch on issues such as the built environment. I will address the articles chronologically based on the release date of Elefante Blanco and Os Inquilinos, in order to demonstrate how the two films picked up on local debates about the socio-economic conditions in the peripheral areas and violence. Also, through these articles I will show how films can generate more debate on issues pertaining to the city.

Newspaper articles help shape the urban imaginary by providing data about the conditions of social and material conditions in the peripheral areas. On October 11, 2011

Página 12 published a news item, “Los números de la emergencia,”64 [Numbers of emergency], based on a survey of the growth of the villas and asentamientos in Buenos

Aires done in April of 2011 by the non-profit organization “Un Techo para mi País” [A roof for my country].65 This organization’s leaders are young people who volunteer in nineteen countries in Latin America helping families in situations of extreme poverty by building emergency homes, working toward social housing, and promoting the growth of sustainable communities. According to the newspaper, “Más de 508 mil familias residen actualmente en 864 villas y asentamientos del Gran Buenos Aires, el 83 por ciento de esos barrios no cuenta con acceso a la red de gas y el 21 por ciento se ubica sobre o cerca

64 Rocío Magnani, “Los números de la emergencia,” Página 12, October 5, 2011, Sociedad section, www.pagina12.com.ar (accessed May 8, 2015). 65 On the same day the newspaper Página 12 published the article about villas miseria and asentamientos, it announced the release of Taretto’s Medianeras (11/05/2011). The film review, titled “Esas paredes que dicen cosas,” [These walls that say things] by Oscar Ranzani, conveyed information about the film such as the fact that it was based on a short film that Taretto did with the same title. Página 12, October 5, 2011, Cultura & Espectaculos section, www.pagina12.com.ar (accessed May 8, 2015)

192 de un basural” [Over 508,000 families currently live in 864 villas and asentamientos in

Greater Buenos Aires. Eighty three percent of these neighborhoods don’t have access to gas distribution and twenty one percent are located on or near a dumping ground]. The article also points to the distinction between the villa and asentamiento. The former is a

“conjunto altamente hacinado de viviendas precarias que no cuentan con espacios verdes y en las que el espacio de circulación es el pasillo” [highly crowded shanty towns that lack green spaces and where circulation is restricted to narrow passageways], while the asentamientos, which started to grow in the 1980s are “una forma más planificada, se respeta el trazado de calles y se reserva espacio para una plaza o escuela. Eso hace más posible que accedan a la regulación dominial” [more planned, the layout of streets is followed and space is reserved for a park or school. These characteristics make it possible

[for residents] to obtain title recognition]. “Los números ...” notes that villas and settlements are more prominent in the Matanza neighborhood followed by others located mainly in the western side of the city, the region where El Bonaerense takes place. The article offers an overview of the situation of villas and settlements pointing out that these phenomena must be framed socially, economically and politically in order to be grasped, calling for the involvement of all sectors of society, state and civil, in the search for solutions.

Film critic Diego Batlle responded in implicit ways to existing public debates about the city’s poor neighborhoods –not only those circulated in newspapers, but also in

(foreign) films. The following year, on May 17, 2012 Batlle wrote an article in the more mainstream local newspaper, La Nación, about Trapero’s film Elefante Blanco, which

193 was being released that day.66 In the article Batlle praises the film and its “powerful narrative and great mise-en scène” giving it four out of five stars, meaning muy buena

[very good]. And Batlle says that “Lo primero que hay que decir es que Trapero elude la porno-miseria, el paternalismo y la estilización de la violencia en la línea de películas de proyección internacional como Ciudad de Dios” [The first thing that has to be said is that

Trapero avoids porn-misery, paternalism, and the aesthetization of violence along the lines of films of international reknown such as City of God]. Batlle’s article praises the film alluding to a differentiation between Trapero’s approach to violence in the city and its representation by other well-known contemporary works –an issue to which I will return later on when I present Brazilian news articles and on the distinction pointed here by Batlle.

Shortly thereafter, another item in the same newspaper expanded on Batlle’s praise of Trapero’s film, relating it to the experiences of the building’s dwellers. On

Sunday May 27, 2012 La Nación published a full-page article with the following headline, “Vivir en el verdadero Elefante Blanco”67 [Living in the real Elefante Blanco] in its Ciudad section. The subheading read as follows: “Detrás del éxito de la película de

Pablo Trapero, se revela una prolongada y dolorosa historia de décadas de abandono"

[Following Trapero’s successful film, a prolonged and painful history of decades of neglect is revealed]. The article starts with the following lines, “Si el edificio Elefante

Blanco fuera solamente el protagonista de una película, su historia no sería tan dolorosa.

Pero el Elefante Blanco es una realidad olvidada, el sueño de una Argentina inconclusa.

66 Diego Batlle, La Nacion, May 17, 2012. 67 Marina Hermann, La Nacion, May 27, 2012, 194

Un monumento a la frustración, en cuyo subsuelo anegado por el agua de las cloacas flotan ventiladores rotos, heladeras viejas y ratas en pleno festín.” [If the White Elephant were only the protagonist of a film, its history would not be so painful. But the White

Elephant is a forgotten reality, a dream of an unfinished Argentina. A monument to frustration; broken fans, old refrigerators, and rats delighted with their surrounds float amid the sewage water flooding the basement.] Reporter Marina Hermann goes on to give an account of the harsh situation that involves the building and its dwellers.

According to the article, there were almost one hundred families living on the first two floors of the building with no access to utilities such as electricity. Many of them were addicted to cocaine paste.68 The article suggests that even the recent Kirchner administrations –known for their populist policies—have not adequately responded to the residents’ concerns despite promises to do so. A twenty-year-old man, Martín, says, “Acá vinieron Néstor [Kirchner], Cristina [Kirchner] y Telerman. Todos vinieron a hablar de la construcción de viviendas” [Néstor, Cristina, and Telerman came here. All of them came to talk about building houses]. The article refers to another woman who lives in the Villa

Ciudad Oculta, which is adjacent to the building and was the setting of Elefante Blanco, who wrote a letter to the President Cristina Kirchner asking for a house. Ultimately the answer was that she would have to get in a line where many other people are waiting for one. In recounting these experiences, the news article suggests that for the families that live in the building, having a house is a dream that remains unattainable. Given the political-economic situation faced by the country, it does not seem a possibility for most

68 paco 195 of those who need this kind of help from the government. The article points to the inability of the government to put in place solutions that would bring dignity to the destitute and, through its invocation of the building as a monument to frustration, laments the state’s long-standing practice of unfinished projects related to political interests.

On June 19, 2012 Página 12 published an article about Elefante Blanco surpassing Trapero’s last film’s Carancho on box office. The article adds that,

…Elefante Blanco fue declarado ayer de interés social y cultural por la

Legislatura porteña. Según argumentó Maria Elena Naddeo, impulsora de la

iniciativa, ‘el film recorre la problemática social que atraviesan las personas de las

zonas más empobrecidas de nuestra ciudad, desde una mirada diferente. Revela

cómo la pobreza, el tráfico de drogas, la falta de empleo y de vivienda, golpea a

sus habitantes, transformando su realidad individual y colectiva.’

[… White Elephant was declared yesterday [to be a work] of social and cultural

interest by the municipal legislature. According to Maria Elena Naddeo, who

fostered the initiative, ‘the film maps the social problems experienced by the

people from the poorest zones in our city from a different viewpoint. It reveals

how poverty, drug trafficking, unemployment and housing deal crippling blows to

its dwellers transforming their individual and collective reality.’]

These cultural texts (newspaper articles and Elefante Blanco) contributed to the

(re)construction of a shared urban imaginary. The film echoed existing (newspaper) representations of the villas as deprived. Batlle suggests that Elefante Blanco avoided

196 some of the pitfalls of mainstream media/film’s depiction of the villas. Newspaper articles provide an overview of the harsh conditions of the slums in Buenos Aires. At the same time they relate these areas to their filmic representation. Elefante Blanco generates public debate about these areas, which critiques social imbalances lived by Argentina.

Furthermore, the last article shows that the film acquires another dimension being declared of “social interest” by the state. Ironically, this declaration/recognition comes from the same state apparatus that seems inapt to properly address the social problems critiqued by the film.

As I have pointed out, the social and infrastructural deficiencies outlined in the articles are processes directly related to the instauration of neoliberal rule throughout the underdeveloped South. Maristela Svampa points out that one of the consequences of the implementation of the neoliberal rule is “la segregación obligada de un amplio contingente de excluidos del modelo, reflejada en la multiplicación de las villas de emergencia y los asentamientos.” (49) [the segregation of an ample group of the excluded from the model, reflected in the multiplication of villas de emergencia and settlements].

The phenomena reported by Página 12 in “Los números…” and mentioned by La Nación in its article connecting the film to the reality lived by the city, are consequence of these economic-political interventions. Mike Davis indicates that

According to neoclassical theory and World Bank projections, the 1990s should

have righted the wrongs of the 1980s and allowed Third World cities to regain

197

lost ground and bridge the chasms of inequality created by the SAPs69 – the pain

of adjustment should have been followed by the analgesic of globalization.

Indeed, the 1990s, as The Challenge of Slums wryly notes, were the first decade in

which global urban development took place within almost utopian parameters of

neoclassical market freedom... However, according to the UN’s Human

Development Report 2004, “an unprecedented number of countries saw

development slide backwards in the 1990s. In 46 countries people are poorer

today than in 1990. In 25 countries more people are hungry today than a decade

ago.” Throughout the Third World a new wave of SAPs and self-imposed

neoliberal programs accelerated the demolition of state employment, local

manufacturing, and home-market agriculture. The big industrial metropolises of

Latin America – Mexico City, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Buenos Aires –

suffered massive losses of manufacturing jobs (163)

It is precisely these disposable lives of the capitalist rule, who are left to live a deprived life in the outskirts of the metropolises of the South without many options and lack of attention from the ruling elite, that are the focus of films like Elefante Blanco. As suggested by the abovementioned newspaper articles, such films did not merely draw on existing public discussions; rather, at times, as in the case of Trapero’s film, they helped to stimulate public awareness and promote public debate about growth of villas as a result of neoliberal policies by encouraging newspapers to provide more information to readers

69 Structural Adjustment Programs. Davis notes that, “The Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) imposed upon debtor nations in the late 1970s and 1980s required a shrinkage of government programs and, often, the privatization of housing markets. However, the social state in the Third World was already withering away even before SAPs sounded the death knell of welfarism” (63). 198 about the conditions depicted in the film reviews themselves as well as in other articles.

As I have argued, Elefante Blanco did something beyond what was in the newspaper articles. Despite its limitations, Trapero’s film gave us an overview of the breadth of the problem (via the extreme long shots from atop the hospital), and “insider’s view” (via the hand-held camera).

Another factor closely related to the destitute in the big metropolises is violence.

Newspaper articles in general have focused on violence as a major problem in contemporary São Paulo in different ways. The following articles show at least three main distinct ways this issue appeared in print media: violence against celebrities, which are highly advertised; against the common citizen, which does not have the same repercussion; and that of the organized crime. Nonetheless, not all of these three foci appear in film. The representation of violence in the films varies from a more acid commentary on it in, for example, Os Inquilinos to a more romanticized depiction of violent acts in Elefante Blanco.

Gilberto Dimenstein70 is one of the most influential contemporary Brazilian journalists. In one of his articles he offered interesting insights on the issue of violence by citing a survey to recognize how violence has permeated the “urban imaginary” and by offering metacritical commentary on the media itself. In terms of the latter, he questioned dominant representations (e.g. in Rede Globo) by bringing to the forefront

“everyday” violence that points to larger, systemic problems and that is otherwise

70 Dimenstein is from São Paulo. He created the online project “Catraca Livre” (Free Turnstile). According to www.catracalivre.com.br “A grande missão do Catraca Livre é usar a comunicação para empoderar os cidadãos... Queremos ajudar as cidades a serem mais educadas, acolhedoras e criativas.” [Catraca Livre’s big mission is to use communication to empower citizens… We want cities to be better educated, welcoming, and creative.] 199 overlooked. On April 7, 2002 Dimenstein wrote an article for the São Paulo-based newspaper Folha de São Paulo titled “O Brazil produziu mais um herói desconhecido”

[Brazil has produced yet another unknown hero]. The article starts referring to a famous

TV personality, Pedro Bial, who is the anchor of the most well-known reality show on

Brazilian TV, “Big Brother,” a Rede Globo production, who was victim of a robbery that almost claimed his life. The robbers shot him but the shot inexplicably failed. The case was amply covered, mainly by Rede Globo. Dimenstein then turns to a similar case faced by a public school teacher, Edi Greenfeld, principal of a school in a peripheral neighborhood in São Paulo’s east side who was killed by drug dealers with two gun shots in the head. The teacher, says Dimenstein, “…travava uma luta solitária contra os traficantes que insistiam em vender drogas nas imediações da escola que dirigia” […was fighting a lone fight against drug dealers who insisted on selling drugs in the perimeter of the school she directed]. He then provides statistical data about a survey done by Ibope –

Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics. Two thousand people were interviewed and the survey’s questions were about different kinds of fear felt by the population, such as violence, unemployment, acquiring lethal diseases, etc. Dimenstein says that

Tomando-se apenas os entrevistados nas capitais – locais em que se forma a

opinião – o medo da violência é o item da pesquisa que atinge o limite da

unanimidade, 94%. Paga-se o preço da miséria, da desigualdade, do consumismo

como valor supremo da sociedade, da incapacidade de incluir os jovens da

periferia, da indigência dos serviços públicos em educação, lazer, saúde. Como se 200

vê no assassinato de Edi Greenfeld, drogas nutrem a violência – assim como

também se nutrem do desemprego.71

[Taking only respondents in the capitals into account - places where opinion is

formed - the fear of violence is the item of the survey that reaches the limit of

unanimity, 94%. You pay the price of misery, inequality, consumerism as the

supreme value of society's failure to include young people from the periphery,

indigence of public services in education, leisure, health. As seen in the murder of

Edi Greenfeld, drugs nourish violence - as well as they nourish from

unemployment]

The tone of indignation of Dimenstein’s article reflects a reality that was not new at time of the publication of the article; neither was a solution found in the years that followed it for the problem of violence and crime in São Paulo, more specifically, and in Brazil at large. On the contrary, this is a problem that has increasingly been part of daily news in

Brazil.

In another article Dimenstein critiques the inability of the state to reduce violence.

In August 2006 he wrote a short article in Folha de São Paulo about the PCC – Primeiro

Comando da Capital [First Capital Command]. I mentioned the PCC in my analysis of Os

Inquilinos in Chapter 3 (and the violent group is also briefly referenced in Linha de

Passe). The article’s title is “Viramos Colômbia,” referring to the power of PCC, and the chaos generated by the inability of the state to avoid and control a situation that has

71 Folha de S.Paulo, 04/07/2002, Cotidiano Section. 201 escalated.72 This comparison suggests that violence in contemporary Brazil is out of control, similar to what happened in Colombia with the violence generated by drug cartels. The journalist Eliane Cantanhede also wrote about the PCC in Folha on 8/9/2006 and the nerve-wracking war being faced by the population while state and federal governments argued over less important details on how to address the situation without reaching an agreement.73 But this was not only local news. Given its dimensions magazines such as Time74 and newspapers such as The New York Times75 reported on what was considered the most violent act of its kind in Brazilian history.

As Brazilian anthropologist Teresa Caldeira puts it, “As violent crime increased in

São Paulo in the past fifteen years, so has the fear of crime. Everyday life and the city have changed because of crime and fear, and this change is reflected in daily conversation.” (19) Like Dimstein, Caldeira recognizes that it is not only the violence itself, but also its representation that is shaping the urban fabric and public space. Talk of crime is part of daily social interactions forming opinions and shaping perceptions. As the state fails to provide a safe urban environment the population has to protect themselves installing bars and other security measures to make it more difficult for robbers to have access to people’s properties. It is common to hear from citizens that they are imprisoned inside their homes, behind bars, while bandits are free on the streets. These changes in citizens’ behavior are symptomatic of continuous transformations that have been taking

72 Folha de S.Paulo Online, 8/13/2006, Section Pensata. 73 “Guerra de nervos,” [Nerveracking War], Folha de S.Paulo Online, 8/9/2006, Section Pensata. 74 Andrew Downie, “Behind Brazil's Killing Spree,” Time, São Paulo, Wednesday, May 17, 2006

75 Associated Press, “Brazilian Gang Attacks the Police,” The New York Times, São Paulo May 13, 2006.

202 place both in São Paulo and Buenos Aires, as portrayed by the representation of these cities in the articles I just introduced and as I have pointed out in previous discussions on these countries’ cinemas. Both Os Inquilinos and Elefante Blanco offer a similar critique of marginalization and how it is spatialized in contemporary city. They both talk about violence as necessarily coincident with marginalization echoing what the newspapers articles (and scholarly studies) say about it. Nonetheless, the films go beyond that. Their critique of the city provides different perspectives of the marginalization under which part of the city’s dweller live, such as that of the ones who suffer alienation from the city.

In addition to their common thematic interests, these films make similar aesthetic choices in order to situate their critiques as authentic, timely, and “real.” Filming on- location plays a fundamental role in depicting life in the outskirts of São Paulo and

Buenos Aires. For instance, the entrapment motif of Os Inquilinos, El Bonaerense and

Elefante Blanco (explored in chapters 1 and 2) depends on the use of particular sites in the city to portray the daily life of marginalized life conditions in these urban areas. The villa Ciudad Oculta in the Argentine capital or the working class neighborhoods such as

Buenos Aires’ La Matanza and Brasilândia in São Paulo’s northern zone are crucial part of the mise-en-scène in Elefante Blanco, El Bonaerense, and Os Inquilinos respectively.

An interview with Bianchi in the São Paulo based newspaper O Estado de São

Paulo comments on the search process to find a location to shoot the film, demonstrating his enthusiasm for the place they were able to find and the crew’s relationship to it.

Não por acaso Bianchi evitou filmar em estúdio: Fez questão de levar toda sua

equipe para o alto da Brasilândia. “A produção achou um lugar incrível, no fim de 203

uma rua havia um terreno, depois dele uma ladeira e uma vista incrível para toda a

região. Parecia um quadro da periferia. Decidimos alugar o terreno, que pertencia

a uma ONG, e construir lá as casas que queríamos filmar. Foi bom para todos.

Nós achamos nosso cenário. Eles ficaram com as casas.76

[Not coincidentally Bianchi avoided filming in studio: He made sure to take all

his team to the top of Brasilândia. "The production found an amazing place, at the

end of a street there was a lot and after it a slope and an incredible view of the

entire region. It looked like a picture of the periphery. We decided to rent the

land, which belonged to an NGO, and there build the houses we wanted to shoot.

It was good for everyone. We found our scenario. They kept the houses.”]

The article points out that Bianchi lives in downtown São Paulo and had to learn hands- on the logic that moves the periphery’s gear. Finding the perfect place depicting the peripheral São Paulo was not the only challenge. Bianchi adds that “Ao mesmo tempo que muitos gostaram do projeto, que trabalharam com a gente, outros ficaram incomodados. E não se mudaram.77 Até atrapalharam. Tivemos também de negociar com as boas (e as más) lideranças do bairro, tivemos de entender toda essa lógica.” [While many liked the project, and worked with us, others were bothered, and did not move.

They even messed things up. We also had to negotiate with the good (and bad) leaders of the neighborhood; we had to understand all this logic.]

76 Flavia Guerra, “O perigo mora no puxadinho ao lado,” O Estado de São Paulo, February 2, 2010, section Cinema. 77 Here a pun with the second part of the title of the film, Os Incomodados que se Mudem (Don’t Like it, Leave!). 204

Similarly, Pablo Trapero talked about the experience of filming (Elefante Blanco) in the villa in an interview for the Buenos Aires based newspaper Clarín:

“No es autobiográfica, pero hay recuerdos, imágenes que tengo de una época en la

que iba a hacer trabajo social en las villas.”… El director de Mundo grúa dice que

lo más difícil de esa experiencia “es hacer convivir todos esos mundos: el equipo,

Darín, Jérémie, todos juntos en un lugar muy diferente al que están

acostumbrados. Y a la vez es lo más movilizador del proceso. Como todas las

películas está lo que pasa en la ficción y lo que vivís mientras la hacés. En ese

sentido, esa es una película extrema.”

[“It's not autobiographical, but there are memories, images that I have of a time

when I was going to do social work in the slums "... The director of Crane World

says that the hardest part of the experience" -is to have all those worlds coexist:

the [production] team, Darín, Jérémie, all together in a very different place to

which they are accustomed. At the same time it is the most mobilizing of the

process. Like all films there is what happens in fiction and what you live while

you do it. In that sense, this is an extreme movie.”]

And Ricardo Darín says:

“La gente te habla de sus problemas con las cloacas, la falta de atención sanitaria,

el narcotráfico, esperando que puedas ayudar de alguna forma… Con la gente de

la villa nos vamos conociendo. Te enterás de sus problemas y aprendés a

205

diferenciar… Varia tu enfoque al estar ahí, esa cosa de clase media que te hace

creer que tenemos problemas graves por renunciar a un subsidio y no nos damos

cuenta de los verdaderos problemas de la gente. Cuando entrás en contacto con

ellos empezás a tener una visión distinta de todo.”78

["People [in the villa] talk to you about their problems with the sewers, lack of

health care, drug trafficking, hoping you can help in some way ... We are getting

to know the people of the slum. You find out their problems and learn to

differentiate ... Your focus changes being there, that middle-class thing that makes

you believe that we have serious problems to forego a grant and we are not aware

of the real problems of the people. When you get in contact with them you start to

have a different view of everything."]

Bianchi and Trapero suggest that filming on-location in those neighborhoods required negotiations and that they were willing to negotiate in order to carry out their vision. At the same time, despite the similarities, as much as Bianchi’s film seems to offer a more incisive (less romanticized) critique of urban marginalization than Elefante Blanco his words suggest that he was less willing (or maybe more distant from the production process) than Trapero in engaging with the residents of the neighborhood. If the articles are accurate, perhaps this demonstrates the importance of distinguishing between the contestatory potential of the films themselves and that of the filmmaking process (i.e.

78 Diego Lerer, Clarín, Jan 8, 2012, section Espectáculos. 206 how certain filmmakers see their work as collaborative with community members, while others do not or do so to a lesser extent).

Being in synch with lived experiences in the metropolis is at the fulcrum of these directors’ projects. As seen in Os Inquilinos and Elefante Blanco, social issues such as violence, are part of Bianchi’s and Trapero’s preoccupation with the reality that haunts society. The tendency of the police to shoot first and ask questions later (known as gatillo fácil), for instance, and other unlawful acts committed by the police reflect the public debate found on the news.79 Nonetheless, the cinemas of these directors tend not to make use of a sensationalist tone of violence as pointed by Brazilian film scholar Ivana Bentes referring to some contemporary new-realist films (87). Bianchi’s and Trapero’s films have tended to expose socio-economic and political issues privileging aesthetic choices.

In distinguishing contemporary films from the “aesthetics of hunger” visible in the militant New Latin American Cinema of the 1960s, Bentes says,

Passamos da "estética" à "cosmética" da fome, da idéia na cabeça e da câmera na

mão (um corpo-a-corpo com o real) ao steadcam [sic], a câmera que surfa sobre a

realidade, signo de um discurso que valoriza o "belo" e a "qualidade" da imagem,

ou ainda, o domínio da técnica e da narrativa clássicas. Um cinema "internacional

popular" ou "globalizado" cuja fórmula seria um tema local, histórico ou

tradicional, e uma estética "internacional". Folclore-mundo. (88)

79 Reporting on a protest against the killing of a young man that was shot eight times by a police officer while he was riding his motorcycle the newspaper Página 12 says, “Casal [Ministro de Justicia] ha instaurado la política de la ‘equivocación de cartuchos’ por parte de la Bonaerense a través de la cual se llega al gatillo fácil contra los jóvenes”. Horacio Cecchi, “Una marcha para el cambio,” Página 12, February 15, 2011, section Sociedad, (accessed on May 8, 2015). 207

[We went from the "aesthetics" to the "cosmetics" of hunger, from an idea in your

head and a camera in hand (hand-to-hand with the real) to the steadcam [sic], the

camera surfing over reality, a sign of a discourse that values the "beautiful" and

the "quality" of the image, or even the mastery of technique and classical

narrative. A "popular international" or "global" cinema whose formula would be a

local issue, historical or traditional, and an "international" aesthetic. World-

Folklore.]

To some degree, Bentes’ words seem to point to the trajectory taken by Bianchi’s and

Trapero’s cinema, more specifically in the representation of the city. Bianchi says in the article that he got tired of doing “pamphlet” films, although at the time he thought that more confrontational approach was necessary in order to carry out the message he wanted. This is a reference to films such as Cronicamente Inviável (2000) [Chronically

Unfeasible], which was an incisive film, fiercely “engaged” with the social problems faced by Brazilian society. This characteristic gave Bianchi’s cinema the nickname

“Cinema Faca” [Knife Cinema] because they “cut into” or pierced the complacency of the spectator. Nevertheless, his cinema has changed. Talking about Os Inquilinos Bianchi says in the article, “Eu queria fazer um filme mais clássico, mais narrativo mesmo” [I wanted to make a more classic cinema, even a more narrative one]. And he says he still pursues his ideological beliefs, i.e. talking about social inequalities, as he definitely does in Os Inquilinos, maintaining to a certain extent his incisiveness. Nonetheless, when we compare these two films, set nine years apart, the latter seems to reflect what Bentes notes about mastering classical narrative and its connection to a “global cinema.” By the 208 same token, although Trapero’s films have never been as incisive as Bianchi’s, his early films show a stronger commitment to an aesthetics that privileges the exploration of human interactions and the use of formal elements that include relevant positioning of the camera and minimal lighting, as seen, for instance, in Mundo Grúa (1999) and El

Bonaerense. In contrast, despite its best intentions, Elefante Blanco seems to privilege the “quality of the image” (at times, surfing over reality with a steadicam as noted by

Bentes).

Building the material city

Certain films offer their critique by exploring the relationship between the middle classes and the built environment. As I have been discussing, both the Brazilian and Argentine case studies offer a critique of the urban processes under capitalism. This critique from the perspective of the middle- upper class is predominant in O Invasor and Medianeras, but also in Linha de Passe. This privileged viewpoint posits its critique through the depiction of the built environment and the economic-political dynamics involved in its construction processes. In O Invasor it is portrayed through the depiction of the construction company as a producer of the material city and its owners, two engineers, exploring the business world and its relationship with the politics of the construction business in Brazil. For its part, Medianeras, offers a more complicated portrayal of the relationship between the middle classes and the built environment. On the one hand, the film suggests that the engineers and architects who produce the vertical city are the ones responsible for the problems faced by Buenos Aires’ dwellers in all levels; at the same 209 time, it also positions the middle class as the sector most affected by this industry. In this process there is a direct correlation between the dynamics involved in the construction of the built environment and larger socio-political and economic issues.

Transformation of the built environment is directly related to the land and its use and exchange value. This is a process that involves mainly private capital, but also depends on state investments. David Harvey points out that physical infrastructure such as bridges and houses are assembled together as a spatially specific resource complex of assets for production and consumption. According to Harvey there is tension between this kind of production and a dynamic of accumulation. And he identifies some general points. Among these points he notes that “Capitalists therefore have a direct interest in the creation and location of such investments and will seek an advantageous location with respect to them.” He also points out that “the production of the built environment means withdrawing capital from current consumption and production, and that is usually done through debt-financing.” (1985, 145) This process usually entails the involvement of government as a regulatory intermediary due to the high cost involved. This is particularly the case in Latin America, more specifically the cases I am discussing here due to political and economic unrest verified mainly throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.

As I noted in the introduction, São Paulo and Buenos Aires saw an extraordinary growth in their material environment throughout the twentieth century. Although not comparable to the great Hausmannian transformations that took place in the early decades of the twentieth century, during the second half of the century Buenos Aires and São

210

Paulo witnessed the construction of many new roads and overpasses as well as commercial and residential buildings (Podalsky 15-16). The construction of residential and commercial buildings has benefitted the middle and upper classes in particular, leaving the destitute less attended or unattended in a process of segregation that has worsened over the last decades in both cities, widening greatly class divisions and generating greater social unrest.

In Brazil (and in the capitalist world at large) the construction industry has been known as one of the main thermometers of the economy.80 If things go well in this sector, it translates into a good moment for the economy of the country, meaning that capital is circulating. And São Paulo, the financial center of the country plays a fundamental role in this scenario. Nonetheless, even when there is circulation of capital fostered by a good moment in this sector, it does not necessarily translate into fair distribution of capital or adequate public investment in the areas in need of such investments. Although there have been some initiatives, they have not fulfilled their promises.

Over the last decades the Brazilian government put in place some efforts to assuage the socio-economic inequalities exacerbated by the modernizing process in urban centers – specifically by helping to provide subsidized housing. As Edward Soja puts it,

“By 1970, virtually every country in the world had adopted some form of spatial planning

80 Carlos Ernesto Ferreira provides some interesting insights about the construction industry in Brazil, its important role in job creation, and the role of the state. He points out that new technologies such as the use of iron structures and the creation of apparatuses such as the elevator influenced the growth of the industry from the 1920s onwards when Engineers started to have a more prominent role in the industry in São Paulo. Another factor was the use of cement for the construction of residential and office buildings’ structures such as beams, posts, etc. which use concrete structures. Most of the materials used in the construction industry were imported, mainly from the United States; therefore when cement started to be internally produced it provided the industry with more flexibility influencing in lowering the cost of construction. Ferreira also mentions that the public sector was responsible for a 62%-increase in the construction industry from 1958 – 1964. (p.25) 211 policy… This worldwide Keynesian regional planning signaled an explicit, if often only documentary, commitment by the state to redress regional… inequalities, in effect to change the established spatial division of labour” (168-169). In Brazil, this process started in the mid-1960s. In August 21, 1964 the government issued Law 4.380 creating, among other things, the Banco Nacional de Habitação (BNH) – [National Housing Bank] and the Sistema Federal de Habitação e Urbanismo – SFH [Federal Housing and

Urbanization Service]. Article 1 of this Law says:

O Govêrno Federal, através do Ministro de Planejamento, formulará a política

Nacional de habitação e de planejamento territorial, coordenando a ação dos

órgãos públicos e orientando a iniciativa privada no sentido de estimular a

construção de habitações de interêsse social e o financiamento da aquisição da

casa própria, especialmente pelas classes da população de menor renda.

[The Federal Government, through the Minister of Planning, will formulate a

national policy for housing and territorial planning, coordinating the actions of

public bodies and guiding the private sector to stimulate the construction of social

housing and financing home ownership, especially to the classes of the population

of lower income]

Two years later, the government created the Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de

Serviço – FGTS [Employment Guarantee Fund], managed by the Federal Bank Caixa

Econômica Federal, through the Law 5.107, which was modified by Law 8.036 signed on

May 11, 1990 by then President Fernando Collor. Its first paragraph says, “Os recursos

212 do FGTS deverão ser aplicados em habitação, saneamento básico e infra-estrutura urbana”81 [FGTS resources must be used in housing, basic sanitation and infrastructure] underlining its main objective. Brazilian workers formally employed (who have “carteira assinada”82) are issued a personal FGTS account, which is built up throughout someone’s working lifetime in order to form a personal savings fund. At the same time all combined accounts constitute the overall Fund that has to abide by the abovementioned regulations.

In order to build this Fund, each month companies deposit 8% of the employee’s wage into his or her FGTS personal account. This Fund, which pays each personal account a monthly interest rate, can only be withdrawn by the employee in specific events such as retirement or to buy a house, among a few others. This way the government can invest the money, and generate surplus in order to finance the improvement of the material city, for instance. These institutions were created to function as public social entities, providing funding to bridge the gap in housing, mostly for the low-income class, most of which live in metropolises such as São Paulo which, as part of the ruling class plan, were forced to move to the peripheral areas of these cities, as I have mentioned in the introduction, because they could not afford living in more central areas where the cost of

81 Martello, Alexandro. “FGTS Terá R$ 76,86 Bilhões para Investir em 2015.” Globo.com (G1), 11/6/2014, Economy section: “O orçamento do Fundo de Garantia por Tempo de Serviço (FGTS) para o ano de 2015 alcançará R$ 76,86 bilhões, valores que serão destinados a investimentos em habitação, saneamento básico e infraestrutura, informou nesta quinta-feira (6) o Ministério do Trabalho... De acordo com o governo, o orçamento de R$ 76,86 bilhões do FGTS para 2015 está dividido da seguinte forma: R$ 56,56 bilhões para habitação, R$ 7,5 bilhões para saneamento básico, R$ 12 bilhões para infraestrutura urbana e R$ 800 milhões para ‘operações urbanas consorciadas’.” [“The budget of the Fund (FGTS) for the year 2015 will reach R$ 76.86 billion, values that will be used for investments in housing, sanitation and infrastructure, said on Thursday (6) the Ministry of Labor ... According to the government, the R$ 76.86 billion FGTS budget for 2015 is divided as follows: R$ 56.56 billion for housing, R$ 7.5 billion for sanitation, R$ 12 billion for urban infrastructure and R$ 800 million for 'joint urban operations'.”] (Dollar to Real exchange rate on 5/22/2015: 1 US Dollar = 3.09 Brazilian Real - R$). 82 See chapter 1, note 24. 213 land and rent were significantly raised. The films demonstrated that such efforts by the state (in the 1990s forward) were inadequate. This is more explicit as in O Invasor for instance and denounced implicitly in Medianeras as I will discuss in the following paragraphs.

As I discussed in chapters one and two, the Brazilian and Argentine films that are the focus of my analysis, besides proposing a critique of São Paulo and Buenos Aires’ social fabric also offer a critical look into these cities’ built environment generally depicted as composed of alienating spaces. As I have noted, although these films emphasize impoverished people and places that lack infrastructure such as the favela and the villa the corpus of analysis does not focus exclusively on the destitute as a way to show its world to the elite but in some cases also enters the world of the more affluent or turns the gaze towards the better equipped material space of the metropolises in order to discuss their characteristics in view of ampler social structures. It provides a comparative perspective through which to discuss the material city dynamics.

O Invasor emphatically portrays the construction company and its owners revealing through the depiction of their business that their target public is the elite, that is, the privileged sector to which they themselves belong. This is frequently underlined with depth-of-field shots portraying the style of the buildings in construction sites located in more affluent areas (Figure 1). The film portrays the elite as the dominant class, the one from which power emanates producing a hegemonic force. The construction company produces material as well as social space in a self-perpetuating logic. The symbolic phallic power underlined in the film through the depiction of the erection of buildings

214 underscores the influence of capital in this logic. As noted by Lefebvre, “Few people today would reject the idea that capital and capitalism ‘influence’ practical matters relating to space, from the construction of buildings to the distribution of investments and the worldwide division of labour” (9-10).

The relationship between investments in real estate and the more affluent sectors of society is also evidenced through advertisement. The newspapers mentioned in the previous section and other major ones based in São Paulo and Buenos Aires have a section dedicated to the advertisement of residential and commercial spaces. Spaces advertised in these sections target mainly the middle and upper classes. Most of new residential and commercial space for sale in these cities is directed to that social stratus.

Whereas the ads in the newspapers promote the “shiny” face of the urban renovation,

Brant’s film exposes the rotten, corrupt structures that lie underneath that façade. As much as certain parts of contemporary newspapers like Clarín, La Nación, and Folha offer “hard-hitting” news articles critiquing the urban environment, they are ultimately supported by the funding of advertisers who contribute to the type of inequalities being depicted. And although the film does not specifically mention how financing options work, it is implicitly related to the financial system that I described earlier. In exploring the relationship of the more affluent with the real estate business, O Invasor contribute to the (re)construction of the urban environment.

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Figure 3.1. The shot portrays Giba in the foreground in one of his company’s construction site in the middle ground, while depicting elite’s style buildings in the background.

The semi-illegal business dealings between entrepreneurs in the construction business and the Brazilian state is at the core of the film, as I pointed out in chapter one.

In one of the first scenes Ivan is talking with Estêvão, one of the company’s three partners, who says, “Eu não quero negócio com o governo, tem sempre uma falcatrua no meio. Eu já recebi propostas do governo, de lobistas pra entrar nessas. Eu não quiz.” [I don’t want to do business with the government, there is always a scam. I have received proposals from the government, from lobbyists to embark in these scams. I didn’t want to.] This is the pivotal reason that brings “the trespasser” (hit man) into the narrative in order to kill Estêvão and clear the way for the construction company to enter a corruption scheme with governmental apparatus.

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Brant’s 2002 film contributed to exposing such corrupt practices rooted in

Brazilian politics and in the business sector, more specifically the construction business.

During the writing of this dissertation, the Brazilian Federal Police began to conduct an operation to root out corruption that links many people in governmental/public positions, including many politicians, and some of the country’s largest engineering and construction companies. This operation targets an illegal scheme to redirect billions of dollars in tax-payer money. It is called “Operação Lava Jato” [Car Wash Operation]. The data about it are too large to mention here. I will just briefly include one article from the newspaper Folha de São Paulo in order to tie it back to São Paulo’s built environment, my main point in this section, and the connection of this operation with the use of public money in corruption schemes, in this case through the FGTS fund that I have mentioned.

Folha says that, “O fundo FI-FGTS, que utiliza uma fatia de recursos do FGTS (Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço) do conjunto de trabalhadores, tem mais de R$ 11 bilhões aplicados em empresas citadas na operação Lava Jato”83 [The FI-FGTS fund that uses a share of the resources of the FGTS (Employment Guarantee Fund) from the workers group, has more than 3.6 billion dollars invested in companies cited in the Car

Wash operation.] O Invasor takes direct aim at capitalists (Ivan and Giba) and indirect aim at the state as the two “agents” responsible for the inhumanity of the socio-spatial environment.

Medianeras presents Buenos Aires as a city that cannot stop growing, which has its consequences such as the aggravation of class division. In the opening scene of the

83 Folha de São Paulo, 2/23/2015, Mercado section. 217 film Martin says, “[Buenos Aires is] a city where thousands and thousands and thousands of buildings are built without any criteria” (Figure 3.2). He also considers architects and engineers responsible for society’s maelstrom, suggesting that the material conditions under which one lives are directly related to one’s psychic-social wellbeing. This becomes explicit as he explains how residential buildings are divided into many different types. At the same time the film poses the issue of class division in a humorous way.

According to Martín, the different floor plans and what each building has to offer determine who can live where. He says, “Buildings, like most things designed by man, are made for us to differentiate ourselves from each other. There is a front and a back.

There are the high apartments and the low ones. The privileged are identified with the letter A; B exceptionally.” The film’s critique of Buenos Aires’ built environment, more specifically residential and office buildings seen from the perspective of the centrally- located middle-class, relates to the intrinsic need of the city, a commodity, to grow, hence the unbalanced growth seen in cities such as São Paulo and Buenos Aires. The rapid construction mentioned by Martín seemingly would benefit certain middle-class professionals such as architects. Nonetheless, the film shows that this is not the case.

Mariana briefly mentions it. This is portrayed through her experience as an architect who cannot find employment in her field, an issue that seems to be anchored in a political- economic dynamics that privileges only a few. The hundreds of shots of buildings throughout the film give an account of the need of the city to maintain its construction pace in order to reach its goal as a commodity generator, although unlike O Invasor

Medianeras does not indict the role of the state explicitly. As noted by Harvey, “This

218 tension between the need to produce and absorb surpluses of both capital and labor power lies at the root of capitalism’s dynamic. It also provides a link to the history of capitalism urbanization” (1985: 191). This brings me to a point that I briefly mentioned in chapter two and I find it pertinent to develop it a little further here for its importance to Buenos

Aires built environment, and also São Paulo’s, which is emphatically addressed in the film.

Figure 3.2. Workers erecting a building in central Buenos Aires.

Given the prominent role played by architecture and civil engineering and the massive presence of buildings in the film, the concept of urban density lies at the core of

Medianeras’ critique. The film’s emphatic depiction of urban density through images and dialogue, underlines a preoccupation with the (re)construction of the urban imaginary.

219

This emphasis offers a different perspective to the (local) viewer promoting awareness about the density of the city. In the opening scene filled with images of buildings

(analyzed in chapter 2), Martín’s voice- over characterizes Buenos Aires as “una ciudad superpoblada en un país desierto” [Buenos Aires is an overpopulated city in a deserted country]. As delineated in a subsequent statement by the same character, the film is trying to make visible the growing social consequences of the capital city’s overpopulation and oversized place in the nation’s imaginary: “Los edificios son cada vez más chicos para darles lugar a nuevos edificios, más chicos aún” [The buildings are becoming smaller to make room for new buildings, smaller yet]. In their book Spacematrix Space, Density and

Urban Form Meta Berghauser Pont and Per Haupt point out that “The concept of density in urbanism is frequently used to describe the relationship between a given area and the number of certain entities in that area. These entities might be people, dwellings, services, or floor space” (11). Martin’s comments backed up by the images of central

Buenos Aires give an account of how densely populated it is (I am using the term populate here as a reference to the different elements defined by Pont and Haupt), posing questions of sustainability and the feasibility of such pattern.

Starting in the early 1990s, there were two main patterns of construction investments in residential configurations in Buenos Aires that further aggravated socio- spatial tendencies.84 The first one, not emphasized by Medianeras, is the construction of gated communities (as I have mentioned) in suburban areas. This phenomenon changed the landscape of the metropolitan area with the construction of low-density communities

84 Similar patterns were also present in São Paulo during the same period. 220 such as Nordelta, a self-sufficient private area in northern Buenos Aires founded in 1999 surrounded by lakes, private docks, golf courses, and other upscale amenities. Ciccolella and Mignaqui point out that “These suburban communities, accommodating between three hundred thousand and five hundred thousand residents altogether, along with shopping and entertainment centers, constitute the first massive examples of North

American-type suburbanization in a metropolis that had maintained until the end of the

1970s a more European pattern of urbanization” (315). Even as the growth of such communities appeared to be the result of private capital investments, they involved the expenditure of state resources. For example, the gated communities necessitated investments in infrastructure such as the construction and improvement of roads built through concessions and toll schemes. All of this had immense social impact, transforming circulation patterns, promoting the use of private cars over public transportation, and, ultimately, widening the social gap. They offer a good example of the transfer of public investment towards the affluent rather than towards those living in peripheral areas.

The second pattern of urban transformation is the increasing density of the city’s central area, the focus of Medianeras. On a debate between two architects on the Buenos-

Aires-based newspaper El Clarín Justo Solsona says, “Defiendo los edificios en altura porque no veo otra solución para la densidad demográfica”85 [I defend high-rise buildings because I don’t see other solution to demographic density]. The film critiques this kind of statement. The film also questions the underlying logic exemplified in Solsona’s position

85 Solsona, Justo and Ramón Gutiérrez. Patrimonio Urbano El Debate Según dos Expertos. El Clarín, 7/13/2008, Section La Ciudad. 221

–i.e. the notion that cities (or cities’ modernity) are defined by the presence of skyscrapers. At the same time, the film does not offer a solution for the urban space’s agglomeration suggesting that there is not an immediate or definite one, only provisional ones.

On the contrary, according to Medianeras the middle class is destined for this crowded and congested environment that grows without any control. Besides focusing on residential and commercial buildings, the film underlines overpopulated spaces such as in the swimming pool sequence (Figure 3), in which the “Where’s Wally?” animation functions as a metaphor for the high density of central Buenos Aires, which confines the city’s dwellers. The middle class does not have the financial means to move away from the center as do the wealthy who themselves emulate the North American pattern o suburbanization, as pointed out by Ciccolella and Mignaqui. Moving to less modernized peripheral areas is not appealing for the middle class (who may lack the economic means but insist on holding onto the socio-cultural capital associated with living in the center).86

Density leads to confinement and conformity. Although Martín and Mariana complain about their tiny apartments, the film suggests that people overcome the challenges of the city such as its density through provisional solutions. This is evidenced by the illegal window opened on the sidewall, which serves as a metaphor for something else.

Urban density is present in El Bonaerense’s narrative as well as part of the film’s critique of Buenos Aires’s built environment. In chapter two I discussed how the film uses composition to convey entrapment. The film also uses composition and framing to

86 Of course, this sort of downward mobility has occurred in the recent past when many middle class people had to move to the periphery pushed by unemployment and other political-economic consequences. 222 depict the density of the city underlining it in opposition to the openness of the country.

The film frequently stresses the density of Buenos Aires through crowded compositions filled with some of the different entities outlined by Pont and Haupt. The city’s density contributes to the development of Zapa’s subjectivity. Unlike the middle class characters in Medianeras who refuse to move somewhere else, Zapa had the option to leave and return to the small town after been transformed by the metropolis. The last sequence of the film depicts him walking through the open field and looking at the horizon. The film’s last shot depicts him with the sun shining on his face, suggesting that the extreme low density of that space when compared to the conurbano serves as a small liberation. If on the one hand the sequence depicts isolation through extreme long shots of the open space, on the other hand the film emphasizes the impact the city’s dense spaces has on its characters.

223

Figure 3.3. Overcrowded swimming pool in central Buenos Aires.

These films’ explorations of the relationship between the middle-class and the built environment serve to (re)construct the urban imaginary by adding this perspective to the “sociosemiotic matrix”. This viewpoint offers new possibilities to the way the city is imagined by its collective agents. This cinematic representation contrasts with that of the destitute such as the villa and the favela, which has more prominence in the urban imaginary.

Circulating bodies

In the previous chapters I briefly discussed some aspects of bodies in circulation/motion in São Paulo and Buenos Aires. LiPuma and Thomas Koelble point out that “[r]ather than presupposing that cities are self-delimited and relatively stable spaces, connected by

224 circulations to other urban spaces … the postmodern city … is an increasingly global space that is better conceptualized as, constitutively, the site of multiple, transversal, and reflexive circulations that are variously and provisionally stabilized to engender the urban imaginary” (154). In this section I bring together the Brazilian and Argentine cases in order to provide a comparative consideration of how the films’ portrayal of bodies in circulation influence the construction of São Paulo’s and Buenos Aires’ urban imaginary.

I argue that the films show spatial circulation as being socio-economically and politically determined, based on class difference. In this section I will first consider some scholarly conceptual and critical discussions of space and circulation of bodies before commenting on the films.

Michel de Certeau points out that, “A space exists when one takes into consideration vectors of direction, velocities, and time variables. Thus space is composed of intersections of mobile elements. It is in a sense actuated by the ensembles of movements deployed within it…. In short, space is a practiced place.” (117). Bodies circulating in the city through different modes such as walking and using transportation systems produce material as well as social spaces. The movements performed by these bodies through space and time also generate material and social rhythms (Lefebvre 2004:

30)87 that configure the urban text. And some questions arise from the articulation of bodies rhythmically in transit and their relationship to the material and social city. Who circulates? Where? How? Under what laws (if any) is this circulation determined/regulated? etc.

87 “No ear, no piece of apparatus could grasp this whole, this flux of metallic and carnal bodies. In order to grasp the rhythms, a bit of time, a sort of meditation on time, the city, people, is required.” 225

As I have pointed out, from the early stages of the modernization process in São

Paulo and Buenos Aires, state and private initiatives were used to “clean up” areas from the presence of the unwanted, such as raising rent. Steve Pile drawing on Stallybrass and

White88 on reading the city and the body notes that “The body and the city are cartographies of meaning and identity; they are intensifying grids of power, desire and disgust” (178). The bourgeois and the suburb or the prostitute and the slum are constituted by internal relationships. According to Stallybrass and White, in the 19th century the bourgeoisie saw ‘lower’ classes as ignoring moral and social codes generating displacement and distancing among them. They argue that new forms of social regulation created an urban geography constructed out of the bourgeois imaginary. Nonetheless, the boundaries that divided this urban geography were continually transgressed. The example they give is that of the prostitute that came from the slum to walk the streets suggesting possibilities of pleasure and other kinds of ‘pollution.’

The films in my corpus address issues related to the rhetoric of everyday acts of bodies in motion that generate a complex spatial articulation based on class division. This articulation in some cases suggests an allowed transgression based on the needs of the elite to use ‘lower’ classes’ attributes such as work force. On the other hand, there are circumstances where circulation of bodies occurs within a delimited spatial configuration without any class interconnection. I will discuss in these issues in the following paragraphs.

88 The Politics and Poetics of Trangression 226

In El Bnaerense Zapa comes from a small town where the circulation seems to be mostly done by foot. His movements through Buenos Aires, on the other hand, involve a dependence on the bus system. But the film shows his dislocations as occurring mostly within the boundaries of working class neighborhoods suggesting a correlation between his socio-economic fixity and his spatial delimitation. He is confined to the peripheral areas. Similarly, Valter in Os Inquilinos travels only by bus from his working class neighborhood to work then to school and back home. The film does not show any contact between him and elite class in his spatial trajectories. He has an old car, but besides a very brief mention of the fact that the car works, we never see him driving it suggesting that it is a high-maintenance good only used for emergencies or special occasions. We do see him washing it, though, pointing to his care with an expensive transportation consumer good. In places such as these two cities where car culture was intensified and became an object of desire related to individuality and status, public transportation is mostly used less by choice than out of necessity.

Circulation acquires another dimension for the disenfranchised, whose spatial mobility is limited by both the state and the drug dealers; the former being the strongest regulator. In Elefante Blanco the deprived circulate within the confinement of the villa.

The film underlines the rhetoric of the poor walking through the alleys of a materially rotten space that has its own spatial order. The practices of that space at the same time isolate the ones who are bound to its rules and prevent outsiders from circulating within its limits. The only outsiders allowed there are the ones invested in social change. The priests are the only bodies coming from the middle-class or a ‘better-educated’ reality

227 that, through their circulation in the villa provide contact between classes. The film depicts only the priests’ and the social worker’s circulation outside of the villa into the more developed areas underscoring spatial segregation of circulation of bodies in the city; and suggesting that the poor does not have the same rights to the city. The villa has its own circulation codes, such as the ones imposed by drug dealers. There are spatial limits that have to be observed, such as that of the production of narcotics. The priest is allowed to briefly circulate into that area in order to claim the body of the young man killed in the cartel factions’ confrontation as a concession. Nonetheless, when “the city” needs to impose its rules on the poor the police is called to do it breaking through the villa’s circulation rules.

Transgression is allowed for varied purposes according to differences of circulation of social bodies which are socio-economically determined. Linha de Passe and O Invasor show intersections in the trajectories of the working class/periphery and the elite in inverted degrees of emphasis and through different modes of circulation. The former emphasizes the circulation of the working classes while the latter underlines the circulation of the elite in the city, which is undercut by the presence of the peripheral transgressor. Both films emphasize the motorized circulation of bodies, rather than the walkability in the city; in so doing, they suggest a socio-economically determined dependence on motor vehicles. Cleuza travels by bus from her peripheral working class neighborhood to the affluent neighborhood in São Paulo in order to provide labor force for the elite, crossing borders; transgressing spaces. This ‘transgression’ happens based on the need of the elite for cheap labor force. In her trajectory the film underlines social

228 as well as psychological space. The film portrays her on the bus (a paradigmatic element in the film) utilizing the framing to suggest spatial, social and psychological entrapment

(Figure 3.4). O Invasor on the other hand focuses on the circulation of the dominant class. The film underlines the use of the automobile by the elite. The film shows Giba and

Ivan driving their private vehicles in the streets of São Paulo, positioning them as more independent and isolating them from any contact with other classes. This contact happens with Anisio, the trespasser/transgressor who circulates from the periphery into affluent spaces in his car as he tries his way up into the social ladder.

Figure 3.4. Cleuza on the bus.

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The above cases reflect the segregation of circulation of bodies pointed by Pile through Stallybras and White. These films, in different ways and more or less emphatically, point to what Latin American scholars such as Beatriz Sarlo have called modernidad periférica [peripheral modernity], referring to the tremendous gap between poor and elite and the uneven modernization that has taken place in the region. Like

Drummond’s milkman (mentioned in Os Inquilinos), characters such as Cleuza travel into the city to provide the elite with labor force, but are not granted permanent stay or free circulation through elite’s spaces, having to travel back to the periphery on a daily basis. At a different point in the socio-economic chain, the middle-class characters of

Medianeras circulate within a delimited and very different social and material spatiality.

As I discussed in chapter two, Martín walks everywhere. The film portrays him exploring his neighborhood on foot. Mariana, besides walking travels on bus. But differently from

Cleuza or Valter, the film depicts her exploring better equipped material and social spaces and interconnecting with others from the same class. As Mariana is introduced, the film pictures her on the bus in bright light, looking outside observing the reflections on postmodern buildings of central Buenos Aires while she thinks about her career as an architect, which has not taken off yet (Figure 3.5). This is a very different situation from that of Cleuza, Martín, or Zapa, who the films depict without any possible social mobility.

230

Figure 3.5. Mariana on the bus.

As pointed out by Lefebvre, urban spatiality is socially produced. These films depict social mobility in diametrically opposition to spatial mobility. Even in the case of the trespasser what he wants is to be part of the elite world and be able to circulate through the same spheres they do, something that he achieves by poaching into their space. The lower one is in the socio-economic ladder the lesser flexibility in terms of circulation.

A city can be defined by its materiality, by the social relations its dwellers and others have with it, and also by the ways it can be imagined as a city. The urban mindscape is formed by images of the city that people acquire about it, by lived experience such as circulating through the city and/or by other means such as cinema. As

I argued in this chapter, bringing together the six Brazilian and Argentine cases, these

231 contemporary films (re)construct a shared urban imaginary of São Paulo and Buenos

Aires. In doing so, the films offer a critique of social and material conditions in these cities. Their critique, in many cases, relate to other media such as newspapers as I mentioned in the first section. This connects the films to larger debates about the city.

As I demonstrated through the connections between the films and public debates, the built environment, and the circulation of bodies through the city, the state and the market have pivotal roles in the construction of the urban imaginary through their intervention in the urban landscape. These interventions, critiqued by the films, tend to favor the elite, widening the social gaps already in place instead of contributing to their improvement. The images of São Paulo and Buenos Aires portrayed by these films, from more acid to romanticized ones are those of two cities defined by strong class division and social inequalities.

232

Conclusion

In the previous chapters, I analyzed the relationship between contemporary Brazilian and

Argentine cinema and the city, taking into consideration socio-economic and political changes that have occurred in these countries over the last decades. This allowed for a discussion of such urban trends from a cultural viewpoint aligned with works in the field of city films. Given the neoliberal reforms that were intensified from the 1990s onwards in these countries (following an era of dictatorship in both countries) and the reforms’ socio-economic, political, and cultural consequences, the connection between the city and the cinema provided fruitful perspectives through which I could analyze how this nexus offers a critique of state and private initiatives towards the city. Moreover, my goal in discussing how these cinemas portray the city, particularly the globalized metropolises of the South, was to offer a look into the great persistent gaps observed in the Argentine and

Brazilian societies, both social and material.

I have chosen to research how cinema represents São Paulo and Buenos Aires because of their importance in the Latin American and international scenario. My choice for São Paulo had precedence over Rio de Janeiro in the Brazilian case because of the lack of existing research on the former in Brazilian cinema studies in spite of that city’s importance in the national and international imaginary. This approach gave me the

233 opportunity to verify whether or not, or to what extent, these cinemas of the late twentieth and the twenty-first century were preoccupied with these cities and mainly how they were represented. Also, I wanted to verify whether or not they offered a contestatory vision of the socio-economic and political situations experienced in these two countries in relation, for instance, to public discussions about them found in the media, more specifically local newspapers. My conclusions indicate that these cinemas offer a critique of the socio- economic and political situations faced by these countries in ways that underscore fundamental characteristics such as class divisions. Besides this, I also wanted to analyze the aesthetic choices made by the directors in order to see to what extent they reflect new formal directions. There was a transition between earlier cinemas (from the Generación del 60 and the Cinema Novo, for instance), mainly from the 1970s and 1980s, in relation to the so-called (New) New Latin American cinema. My corpus shows that the (New)

New Argentine and Brazilian Cinemas went from a more politically engaged approach to a more commercial one, following aesthetic and global market tendencies dictated predominantly by Hollywood patterns. Within these more recent cinemas, I discussed the changes evident in the cinemas of directors such as Sergio Bianchi and Pablo Trapero, who went from a more incisive and experimental approach to their portrayal of the city to a more commercial one; that said, it is nonetheless important to note that Bianchi, in particular, maintains a somewhat acid tone. These conclusions point to the need to explore other facets involving the cinema-city nexus in my future work.

Given the scope of my study, I had to privilege some choices over others.

Something that my study does not approach in sufficient depth is the issue of the

234 distribution processes related to the contemporary Brazilian and Argentine cinemas. I briefly mention the dominance of the local markets by big international companies

(chiefly US companies) that took advantage of market and political reforms that were carried out in these countries in order to dominate the market. But this is an issue that is pertinent to the study that I proposed, and needs to be further developed. Companies such as Cinemark engulfed local businesses and became part of the landscape of the metropolises of the South. This has great socio-economic and cultural impacts for the

Latin American cities, more specifically São Paulo and Buenos Aires, whose malls

(another adaptation in these cities’ landscape, assimilated from the US) usually have at least one of these theater complexes.

As I have noted, film production in Brazil and Argentina has increased significantly since the mid-nineties with the resurgence and strengthening of those cinemas. Given this increase in production, I could have included other films in my corpus; and an ampler corpus would have given more latitude to my study. To cite only one more film from each country, I could have added Não Por Acaso [Not by Chance]

(Philippe Barcinski, Brazil, 2007) and El Notificador [The Notifier] (Blay Eloy Martinez,

Argentina, 2011). Nonetheless, if I had followed that path, it would have not allowed for the in-depth analysis that I proposed to do.

I believe that my study lays the groundwork for addressing some other big issues related to the city-cinema relationship in contemporary Latin America, allowing me to build on it in the future. For instance, following the end of the dictatorship era, many people coming from television and advertising began to enter the film industry, and this

235 influenced film aesthetics. Also, television aesthetics and the creation and consequent growth of companies such as the Brazil’s Globo Filmes, a company created by Rede

Globo (the world’s fourth largest television/communications conglomerate), heavily influenced local productions. A further study could explore the ways in which television has influenced urban film productions.

As part of this overview of how both state and market interventions (propelled by neoliberal reforms) influenced the urban cinema being made at the time, a future study can look at how films such as the ones in my corpus (and others) were funded and compare their interest in the city to those funded by different sources. For example, one could analyze films funded by Globo Filmes, which may not interrogate urban life in more radical ways (as for instance Sergio Bianchi’s films (still) tend to do), either in terms of their socio-cultural critique or in terms of their (less) experimental aesthetics.

Film festivals have had an important role in the cinema industry in different periods in consecrating/canonizing the work of certain directors and particular formal innovations. In future studies I might also discuss the role played by film festivals within

Brazil and Argentina, as well as international ones, in fostering local cinema production and to what extent these venues might influence the filmmakers’ aesthetic and production choices related to the way these cinemas portray the contemporary city.

The study of the cinema-city nexus in Latin America has still to be further explored and fostered. The lack of English-language translations of existing studies in

Spanish and Portuguese limits the interaction between scholars from different regions.

This impedes a broader circulation of the works of scholars from Latin America, thus

236 isolating the ones who are interested in developing the discussion of this nexus. One of my next goals to contribute to the aforementioned contemporary debate –i.e. establishing a dialogue between the scholarship being carried out in the United States and beyond, and the studies of Latin Americanists-- is to establish/foster channels of communication, which would include an (ambitious) project for the publication of an anthology of urban cinema studies in Latin America in in English.

Given my interest in the interdisciplinary approach, I wanted to include in my analysis other artistic interventions in Buenos Aires and São Paulo. Nonetheless, due to the purpose of my study, this broader corpus would have diverted me from focusing on the depth of my analysis. There has been a significant growth of artistic interventions in public spaces throughout Latin America. These interventions have been the focus of scholarly analysis from different fields. For instance, the work of the anthropologist

Teresa Caldeira offers great insight on this issue. In her studies Caldeira suggests that the city has seen an adaptation of public spaces by artists who have utilized these areas as venues for exhibition and experimentation. A series of interventions by youth are transforming the public space by rearticulating the profound social differences that have marked the city. As examples of these interventions Caldeira mentions the production of artwork such as graffiti, which “reuse” walls and the faces of building, and the creation of alternative modes of circulation, such as skating and parkour. She proposes that these urban interventions guarantee a new visibility for youth from the periphery, challenge previous notions of the functioning of public space, and reveal contradictions in the state’s regulation of “public” space in the city. In terms of these contradictory relations,

237

Caldeira contrasts the support given by São Paulo’s city hall and private companies such as BankBoston for the utilization of public space by grafiteiros (graffiti artists) to their prohibition of pixação (writing/scribbling on walls), often considered anarchic. By analyzing the socio-economic and educational status of these youth (some grafiteiros live in middle class neighborhoods and have access to higher education, while most pixadores come from low-income neighborhoods), Caldeira uncovers the ways in which state policies at the municipal level ultimately regulate the population as well as the built environment.

Latin American cinemas have been interested in this kind of artistic manifestations. The films in my corpus, and others, do offer possibilities of analysis of these artistic interventions. This interest is evident in O Invasor, Elefante Blanco,

Medianeras, and Os Inquilinos, to cite only these. For instance, in the scene showing

Anisio and Marina driving through Anisio’s working class neighborhood in São Paulo, the camera explores the space dedicated to graffiti on the walls of houses and businesses.

Paraphrasing Mark Shiel, my study is concerned with the connection between the cinema and the city – respectively, the most significant cultural manifestation and the most important form of social organization of the twentieth, and I add, the twentieth-first centuries. Although, as I have noted, I had to privilege some choices over others, in this study I have demonstrated the importance of this nexus in the context of the two most important cities of South America and their respective cinemas, the most prominent in the region. My purpose was not to be exhaustive; on the contrary, my goal was to put forward the basis for further discussion of this important socio-cultural relationship.

238

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248