Brazil’s presidential biopic
Lula, sanitised
SÃO PAULO
A film for the campaign trail
ONCE upon a time it was
considered indecent to turn living
people into myths, or even into films,
with too much haste. The cycle
seems to be shorter now. Gandhi
had to wait until 34 years after
his death before he appeared on
cinema screens around the world.
George Bush junior, by contrast,
was the victim of an Oliver Stone
biopic during the last year of his
presidency. Now a Brazilian director,
Fábio Barreto, has done the same for Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva, as he starts his final year of office.
“Lula, Son of Brazil” is the tale of a poor boy made good, his flaws
left on the cutting table and his virtues in close-up. Since Lula hopes to
secure the election of his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff, in October,
it is controversial. The film “promotes the worship of a political myth,” said Eugênio Bucci, a critic and journalism professor. Before it was even
released Veja, a magazine, pointed out that many of the companies that
funded its production (the most expensive in the history of Brazilian
cinema) have either won or hope to win contracts from the government.
For all that, the film is very watchable. It opens in the poor north-east, where Lula was born into a landscape of bright red soil and cacti,
and ends with his rise as a metalworkers’ union leader in the industrial
belt of São Paulo in the 1970s. This is a candyfloss version of the story,
however. Lula’s reverses are shown: the little finger lost to a lathe, the
death of his first wife and child in childbirth. But he is too good to be true:
a perfect student, perfect husband and political moderate who abhorred
violence.
The book on which the film is based, by contrast, quotes Lula as
approving of an incident in which a director of a factory that is on strike
is thrown out of a window. In the film he runs from the factory appalled.
That is a shame. A more nuanced telling would not detract from Lula’s
remarkable life story and achievement.
The film is doing well at the box office. Its producers say it is running
more strongly in the north-east than in the populous south-east, which
means it mirrors Ms Rousseff’s fortunes in the polls. There are plans to
show the film on mobile screens in places with no cinema. It may get an
airing on television, though there is no such deal in place yet.
All this helps a process of mythmaking around Lula that is already
well under way. Catching some of Lula’s stardust is Ms Rousseff’s best
hope for capturing the presidency in October, and there are some signs
that this is happening. The gap between her and José Serra, her main
rival, halved between March and December last year and now stands at
14 points. Competing against a celluloid legend is not easy.
www.economist.com
Read the following statements about the text and choose the appropriate
alternative.
I. Not only Fábio Barreto but also Oliver Stone have turned living politicians
into myths.
II. Dilma Rousseff will surely benefit from the release of the movie.
III. An incident that took place in a factory is depicted differently from the way
it really happened.
IV. The film is about to be available for cell phones next year.
V. Until now producers have had no idea of how well the film is doing in the
movie theaters.
