Short abstract
Directed by Hector Babenco
At selected UK cinemas
Rating: ★★
In a way, Carandiru, the latest film from Brazilian director Hector Babenco—who made the hit 1985 film Kiss of the Spider Woman—offers a medical perspective of a horrific event. It is based on actual events at a massively overcrowded detention centre in Brazil in 1992, when police stormed the building following a riot and 111 inmates were killed. It is told through the eyes of the prison's doctor (played by Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos) as a neutral authority figure.
Figure 1.
Doctor as witness: Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos in Carandiru
Credit: SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC
The film was inspired by a book, Carandiru Station, written by Dr Dráuzio Varella, a Brazilian oncologist who was the doctor at Carandiru between 1989 and 2001. However, the link between Babenco and Varella runs deeper. In the late 1980s Babenco developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which required chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant under the care of Dr Varella. The two friends spoke about the stories of the inmates and Babenco encouraged Varella to write about them. Following his return to health, he adapted it to film.
Babenco has used the actual prison as the set. Up to 12 men share a cell, and a strict and almost perverse prisoners' code is required to prevent the place from imploding. This code also extends to treatment of the doctor, whom many of the inmates regard as a trusted friend. This explains the lack of security in the prison surgery; no threats are ever made to the doctor. The respect he is afforded by the prisoners compares favourably with UK general practice, let alone the short-staffed medical service in Britain's prisons.
Carandiru begins with the doctor's first day and shows his surprisingly free engagement with those around him. HIV testing is a priority as drug use, with subsequent psychosis and high risk sexual behaviour, is rife. AIDS is a huge problem, although to some prisoners it represents better conditions and escape from assault. Scabies is common and rats lurk everywhere. Facilities are basic; when the doctor asks for a patient with tuberculosis to be isolated he is asked incredulously, “Where?” Assisting him are two inmates who, although dedicated, have an unconventional approach to work, such as smoking crack cocaine while suturing wounds as it “makes the veins light up like Las Vegas.” Despite this the doctor retains his calm throughout.
At times his lack of reaction makes him appear smug and inert. Babenco uses the doctor as our eyes and ears in the film, and does little to flesh out his character (we never learn his name, see his home life, or understand what motivates him). The doctor is a pragmatist, non-judgmental of those around him. In this sense, then, this film is a telling study in the value of the doctor as storyteller or witness, a source of unbiased testimony that, in this case, allows for a powerful depiction of a brutal episode in prison history.