A non-linear and somewhat experimental documentary. This short film has been launched after Fernando Collor de Mello has been elected president of Brazil and is a movie clearly of opposition to his government. Collor reminds in many ways demagogic former president Jânio Quadros, who weirdly renounced not much time after he had been elected, opening the crisis that lead to conservative military coup in 1964. Jânio Quadros had a sweeper as a symbol of cleaning the country and fighting corruption - the struggle against corruption in common as a political speech that deceive real programmatic intentions, and Collor would also emphasize it. Sweepers have been made of destroyed films. Collor would destroy Brazilian cinema industry. Quite innovative and political short film.
2 Reviews
The Importance of Memory - for politics and movies
Rodrigo_Amaro1 June 2022
"Memória" ("Memory"). The thing that makes us humans and different from all the other animals in a sense since they act purely due to their
instincts. With memory, we can evaluate things before taking action, we can look back at emotions, feelings, situations, events and can analyze facts
and information can make us to take the best decision, to choose between right and wrong, etc. In short, we can look back to our past while living
in the present moment and we can form a view of the future based on those memories, either good or bad.
Roberto Henkin takes us back to a sad period of Brazil's history reflecting of a past way back in time while judging the then present moment of 1990 and also reflecting of a possible future. Those three periods are now a distant past but yet they seem to keep repeating down here and my analysis can point out all of that, which makes this movie-turned-into-prediction-of-events a far more interesting project than it is, and one that I loved to see.
The critical questioning made by the director and its writers (Henkin and Jorge Furtado) relates to the new elected government by president Collor, right in the early months, and the new laws and regulations created at the time, being the most hurtful for filmmakers and the Brazilian cinema the cutting of financial resources destined to the film industry which later brought Brazilian cinema to a crash where movies were hardly made, some depended on foreign resources (such as "A Grande Arte" in 1991) and even with the few releases made none of them were box-office results. And the parallel made in this short film are done with former disgraced president Jânio Quadros who resigned after eight months in office, and at the time of this short he was the former mayor of São Paulo, and we have to exhamine his erratic and incoherent speeches and interviews from his mayoral term.
What both men have in common besides the presidency and let's just consider 1990 (I'll go beyond afterwards): both were populist politicians who were considered the savior of the nation, both made strong campaigns against corruption, both were young and had great political careers as state governors yet they were virtually unknown from the rest of the country and both approved idiotic laws that failed to appeal to the population or cause any good effect on them. After 1990's, we use our memory to make an even more tragic similarity between them: both resigned from office: one by his own choice; the other was forced to resign after corruption charges.
However, Collor with his "indirect" destruction of movies by not providing funds for new releases - and our cinema depends exclusively from the federal administration since we don't have a system like Hollywood - also provided with his era in office a destruction of our cinematic memory. It happened before him but somehow the movie demonstrates that a certain procedure of burning film rolls from archives was quite rampant. Burning films, apparently, works to develop broomsticks or some other object - can't remember which, but it's told at the conclusion.
What do we get from here by seeing such comparison being made? We evidence that the filmmaker was seeing way back in time and also quite ahead of its time in figuring out that Collor was a charlatan just like the complicated Jânio; and both were responsible for decades of decadence in our history and politics. Both men were figures that took advantage of media to expose their views, to have their photo-opportunity and become major figures in the Brazilian scenery but years after their downfall, they were seen as failures that even somehow managed to get back in the arena and return to minor political figures (but with some expression).
To me, it was amazing to see the contrasts and similarities not only between those two folks but also about our current government (as of the time I write those words). Not gonna give names but you know who: the Brazilian Trump. Like Collor, he's destroying the movie memory of our nation in different ways but with the same purpose: they do not want the people to see anything about our history, our past unless if it fits their own personal narratives of the past. With the clear opposition of not providing funds for major television networks (who weren't so favorable to his administration) and also for not helping the Cinemateca Brasileira - the largest Cinematheque from Latin America - which went through countless financial obstacles and almost burned to the ground. It got helped with private funding and just recently returned its activities.
30-something years after the movie was made, that's the vision I've got - but sadly, it won't end the same way as before. No resignation, no impeachment will come - but people tried.
A minor positive and nostalgic moment comes from a movie montage that presents several short clips from classic movies, from world cinema to Hollywood classics and even our national product "Macunaíma" is there, all shown in a movie theatre where one of its attendees is a blind woman who's all smiley along with her partner. That's the power of movies: even a person who cannot see wants to have the movie-going experience and it's something that she'll probably carry in her memory, the sounds and effects heard, the lines spoken; and the majority of the audience will remember the movie, either good or bad (usually we tend to avoid remembering the bad ones but sometimes they do stick in our heads). That little excerpt about the memory of movies and how they affect our reality and the way we view or remember things is simply amazing. Lots of fast flashbacks came to mind when the movies were being presented. In a short fragment of time I had vivid memories of all the films shown there (the ones I've seen it are all listed in the movie connections section). Film buffs will love this exact moment.
Mr. Henkin makes a great cause here, it's real idea was to shine a light against the cause of film memory which was being misstreated, overlooked and critically ignored, and again it's a clear reminder that those who forget about the past are condemned to repeat it in the future. The most hurting part of this piece is when common people are interviewed talking about the "positive" aspects of Collor and Jânio, and they claim they'd vote for them without questioning. And it's shocking to see that people simply ignored the fact Jânio abandoned the presidency, he didn't do anything worthy of notice in his 8-months period. It was a disaster. As for Collor - this bit the movie doesn't show because it'd only take place in the 2000's - he'd return to politics to become a Senator - position such that he hasn't stepped down ever since. For any criticism of lousy politics, there's always someone somewhere who thinks highly of disgraced figures. I'll never understand that. 10/10.
Roberto Henkin takes us back to a sad period of Brazil's history reflecting of a past way back in time while judging the then present moment of 1990 and also reflecting of a possible future. Those three periods are now a distant past but yet they seem to keep repeating down here and my analysis can point out all of that, which makes this movie-turned-into-prediction-of-events a far more interesting project than it is, and one that I loved to see.
The critical questioning made by the director and its writers (Henkin and Jorge Furtado) relates to the new elected government by president Collor, right in the early months, and the new laws and regulations created at the time, being the most hurtful for filmmakers and the Brazilian cinema the cutting of financial resources destined to the film industry which later brought Brazilian cinema to a crash where movies were hardly made, some depended on foreign resources (such as "A Grande Arte" in 1991) and even with the few releases made none of them were box-office results. And the parallel made in this short film are done with former disgraced president Jânio Quadros who resigned after eight months in office, and at the time of this short he was the former mayor of São Paulo, and we have to exhamine his erratic and incoherent speeches and interviews from his mayoral term.
What both men have in common besides the presidency and let's just consider 1990 (I'll go beyond afterwards): both were populist politicians who were considered the savior of the nation, both made strong campaigns against corruption, both were young and had great political careers as state governors yet they were virtually unknown from the rest of the country and both approved idiotic laws that failed to appeal to the population or cause any good effect on them. After 1990's, we use our memory to make an even more tragic similarity between them: both resigned from office: one by his own choice; the other was forced to resign after corruption charges.
However, Collor with his "indirect" destruction of movies by not providing funds for new releases - and our cinema depends exclusively from the federal administration since we don't have a system like Hollywood - also provided with his era in office a destruction of our cinematic memory. It happened before him but somehow the movie demonstrates that a certain procedure of burning film rolls from archives was quite rampant. Burning films, apparently, works to develop broomsticks or some other object - can't remember which, but it's told at the conclusion.
What do we get from here by seeing such comparison being made? We evidence that the filmmaker was seeing way back in time and also quite ahead of its time in figuring out that Collor was a charlatan just like the complicated Jânio; and both were responsible for decades of decadence in our history and politics. Both men were figures that took advantage of media to expose their views, to have their photo-opportunity and become major figures in the Brazilian scenery but years after their downfall, they were seen as failures that even somehow managed to get back in the arena and return to minor political figures (but with some expression).
To me, it was amazing to see the contrasts and similarities not only between those two folks but also about our current government (as of the time I write those words). Not gonna give names but you know who: the Brazilian Trump. Like Collor, he's destroying the movie memory of our nation in different ways but with the same purpose: they do not want the people to see anything about our history, our past unless if it fits their own personal narratives of the past. With the clear opposition of not providing funds for major television networks (who weren't so favorable to his administration) and also for not helping the Cinemateca Brasileira - the largest Cinematheque from Latin America - which went through countless financial obstacles and almost burned to the ground. It got helped with private funding and just recently returned its activities.
30-something years after the movie was made, that's the vision I've got - but sadly, it won't end the same way as before. No resignation, no impeachment will come - but people tried.
A minor positive and nostalgic moment comes from a movie montage that presents several short clips from classic movies, from world cinema to Hollywood classics and even our national product "Macunaíma" is there, all shown in a movie theatre where one of its attendees is a blind woman who's all smiley along with her partner. That's the power of movies: even a person who cannot see wants to have the movie-going experience and it's something that she'll probably carry in her memory, the sounds and effects heard, the lines spoken; and the majority of the audience will remember the movie, either good or bad (usually we tend to avoid remembering the bad ones but sometimes they do stick in our heads). That little excerpt about the memory of movies and how they affect our reality and the way we view or remember things is simply amazing. Lots of fast flashbacks came to mind when the movies were being presented. In a short fragment of time I had vivid memories of all the films shown there (the ones I've seen it are all listed in the movie connections section). Film buffs will love this exact moment.
Mr. Henkin makes a great cause here, it's real idea was to shine a light against the cause of film memory which was being misstreated, overlooked and critically ignored, and again it's a clear reminder that those who forget about the past are condemned to repeat it in the future. The most hurting part of this piece is when common people are interviewed talking about the "positive" aspects of Collor and Jânio, and they claim they'd vote for them without questioning. And it's shocking to see that people simply ignored the fact Jânio abandoned the presidency, he didn't do anything worthy of notice in his 8-months period. It was a disaster. As for Collor - this bit the movie doesn't show because it'd only take place in the 2000's - he'd return to politics to become a Senator - position such that he hasn't stepped down ever since. For any criticism of lousy politics, there's always someone somewhere who thinks highly of disgraced figures. I'll never understand that. 10/10.
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