Carandiru
BBC2, Sunday 02 August - 2:00am - 4:15am
Hector Babenco's harrowing true story of conditions inside Carandiru, the biggest prison in South America, leaves you scorched and exhausted. The jail's brutality and squalor is introduced through the eyes of a new doctor (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos), brought in to help control an escalating Aids epidemic. Despite the depravity, he finds solidarity and a lust for life among the inmates, who divulge their stories to him in a series of episodes that take in a gay wedding, a balloon-maker and a hitman's religious conversion. Babenco brought a new touch to prison drama in 1985 with Kiss of the Spider Woman, but that was a chamberwork compared with the sprawl of Carandiru, which uses at least a thousand extras in its second-half riot scenes. Babenco's control over everything might not be altogether firm, but his device of letting inhabitants explain themselves to camera is highly effective, and he ably keeps us hearing the rumble of discontent that will later erupt into nightmare rebellion.
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Subtitled, Widescreen
CastDoctor - Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos
Chico - Milton Goncalves
Ebony - Ivan de Almeida
Highness - Ailton Graca
Dalva - Maria Luisa Mendonca
Rosirene - Aida Leiner
Lady Di - Rodrigo Santoro
Too Bad - Gero Camilo
Dagger - Milhem Cortaz
Directed by: Hector Babenco
Filmed in: 2003
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