Carandiru

Star Review

Set in what was Brazil’s most notorious prison, Carandiru serves its time usefully and then goes out with a big bang and a nifty samba. Somewhere between high-end soap opera and Oz, Carandiru casts Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos as a doctor overhearing the funny, tragic and always unpredictable tall tales his patients spin out for him during surgery hours. Despite the forbidding location – where overcrowded cells come as standard and the threat of violence jostles for airspace with tuberculosis germs – the criminals are mostly portrayed as loveable rogues and Robin Hoods, engaging in an extension of the populist mischief Babenco favours. But the last half-hour is bravura filmmaking, more than worth the considered build-up, in which the film’s mediators vanish, the prisoners take up the story themselves, the riot squad storms in, and all hell breaks loose.

Mike McCahill on 1st July 2004

View all 124 of Mike McCahill’s reviews

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Film Description

Based on the book 'Carandiru Station' by Dr. Drauzio Varella, this the story of a doctor working at the state prison Carandiru in order to implement an AIDS prevention programme. Volunteering his work weekly, this film tells the stories of the inmates he meets, before the infamous Pavillion 9 massacre of 1992 when 111 unarmed inmates were killed.

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DVD Extras

• Director's commentary
• Deleted scenes
• The Making-of
• Historical Footage.

Film Details

Cast

Luis Carlos Vasconcelos

Technical Details

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