José Padilha
Truppa Di Elite

I have no idea how this film was received in Italy, nor whether the critics appreciated it to any extent. Certainly here in Brazil, it has sparked a lot of discussion and has been very successful (oh, how this people is attracted to violence!) for reasons that I will attempt to summarize later. The plot, which I will not dwell upon, has as its main thread the drama of the contrasts in the life of Captain Nascimento (already become a character, a cinematic icon), divided between his violent job and his family life. He is, in fact, trying to find the right person to replace him among the new candidates for the "bope" (battalion of special operations). This is a police department with characteristics very different from the common police; it doesn't seem to have corruption, and they are specially trained for urban warfare (see incursions into favelas). They wear black and have this reassuring logo (http://laterminalrosario.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/logo-bope.jpg).

The film portrays other social realities; that of the military police, inefficient and corrupt, that of organized crime in the favelas, and that of the university bourgeoisie.

These worlds, so divided and often contrasting, meet drastically within the plot, revealing some major social problems in Brazil and particularly in Rio de Janeiro.

The film spares no one. When it shows that the military police are corrupted and coexist eating from the same dish as criminals, it doesn't scandalize anyone, as it is a system known by all. In fact, if the average citizen is stopped for some infraction, things can be resolved simply with a small bill. I've done it too, going against my principles, unfortunately, and I hope it doesn't happen to me again.

Here, it's the most normal thing in the world, it's part of the "system," which leaves to citizens the task of supplementing the low wages of public forces. Sometimes though, I must admit, this system represents an effective shortcut in the bureaucratic maze.

The film also sparked an interesting discussion on how the middle-class bourgeoisie is relatively responsible for maintaining organized crime in the favelas. The fact of buying drugs means putting money into the criminal market with which the traffic finances itself by acquiring weapons, in this urban war against central power. It also made me think a lot, as a cannabis user, in such a delicate situation as the Brazilian one, where criminal forces are less hidden than in Italy. Certainly, the discussion can be expanded if we start to reflect on how the system has contributed to the exclusion from social life of a wide part of the population, on how even governments exploit illegality (note that the students in the film are studying Foucault), on how through the legalization of narcotics the situation could change. It remains an open and too complex issue, yet I considered the film's placement positive.

And the "bope"? Well, tremble because when they enter a favela, they don't enter to get themselves killed but to leave behind some corpses, very often even of ordinary people. In the favelas, in fact, the majority of inhabitants are ordinary people who can't afford an apartment in some better area of the city. In the film, they are extremely violent and effective, very prepared. In reality, it's not always like that; they don't always enter quietly as in the film; they often use an armored vehicle called "caveirão" (http://images.ig.com.br/publicador/ultimosegundo/114/114/13/947505.caveirao_261_389.jpg), and it's better not to be on the street at that hour.

But the thing that the film has sparked the most discussion about is piracy. In fact, a copy of the film not yet finalized ended up in the hands of some good soul who distributed it in the wide and well-accepted pirate network. Result: millions of Brazilians, including myself, had already seen the film before it was released in cinema halls. The producers complained of potential losses, I do not exclude the possibility that this fact was intentional.

The uproar arose from the fact that the film was distributed illegally before it was released and not from the piracy itself. It is normal, in fact, to be able to purchase an illegal copy of some film, in some corner of my city, you find everything at prices that vary from two to five times the cost of a blank DVD. I like it, first because the main pirates are films or records with greater commercial echo, second because it gives work to many people and third because it allows those from less affluent classes to buy audio/visual material at a reasonable price (a CD in the store costs between 30 and 40 reais, pirate, between 2 and 5), you do the math!

To conclude, I would like to return to the film which I have not talked much about. It is well-produced, it is a fictional film, but it is not a fairy tale, it deals with reality, because things are just as represented, it lacks that typical falseness of the fiction of North American action films (which I can't stand), it also helps that the director is a documentarian and that the dialogues are improvised, certainly, with scene repetition, but anyway, they do not appear in the screenplay.

In short recommended to those seeking adrenaline, a dose of non-gratuitous violence and wanting to know one of the dirty faces of this "pais tropical, futebol e carnaval".

Anthem of "bope":

Tropa de Elite, o que é que você faz?
Fazemo muita coisa até matamo Satanás!
Tropa de Elite, qual é a sua missão?
Entrar pela favela e deixar corpo no chão!

Translation.

Elite Squad, what do you do?

We do many things, we even kill Satan!

Elite Squad, what is your mission?

Enter the favela and leave bodies on the ground!