The New Brazilian Cinema (review)

The New Brazilian Cinema studies the vigorous revival of the film industry that began in the mid-1990s after what one of the authors in the collection calls the "dismantling" of Brazilian cinema through policies of the Fernando Collor de Mello presidency (1990–1992). This explosion of film production in Brazil began as a result of the 1993 Lei do Audiovisual and the 1993–1994 Prêmio Resgate do Cinema Brasileiro—both developed during the presidency of Itamar Franco—and continued with the support of programs implemented later by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The volume sets out to examine the cinema of this period of growth from diverse perspectives. Contributions were thus sought from Brazilian filmmakers, public officials with influence over the film industry, newspaper film critics, and academics from Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The result is a valuable resource for anyone teaching or researching contemporary Brazilian cinema.

The essays address the current health and the future of Brazilian cinema; its generic, topical, and stylistic tendencies; and the dialogue of recent films with the past. The book is divided into the following sections: "Producing films in Brazil," "Fiction film and social change," "Documenting a country," "Sertão and favela: the eternal return," "Screen adaptations," "History and film history," and the "Epilogue" by Laura Mulvey, entitled "Then and now: cinema as history in the light of new media and new technologies." As editor Lúcia Nagib points out in her introduction, one of the book's salient features is the juxtaposition of opposing points of view in several of the book's subdivisions, a strategy that facilitates the entrance of the reader into critical dialogues about Brazilian cinema produced during the past decade. The first section provides an early example of the polemical pairings. Both chapters treat the achievements and pitfalls of policies relating to the cinema industry during and before the recent boom in production. Nonetheless, the critical tone of director Carlos Diegues's essay, which emphasizes the need for more lasting solutions, contrasts with the qualified optimism of José Álvaro Moisés (former National Secretary of Cultural Support [1995-98] and National Secretary for Audio-visual Affairs [1999-02]). In like fashion, the essays focusing on recent fiction film as a continuing site for reflecting on the political and social conditions in Brazil provide strongly opposed readings of films such as Cronicamente inviável (dir., Sérgio Bianchi, 1999). On the one hand, Ismail Xavier calls Bianchi's film a "non-conformist discourse" (58); similarly, João Luiz Vieira argues that the film assaults "the assumptions and sensibility of contemporary Brazilian moviegoers" (88) and that it "keeps alive the possibility of radical transformation" (93). Fernão Pessoa Ramos, on the other hand, acknowledges the film's critical point of view, but indicts Cronicamente inviável for providing "a comfortable viewing stance, in which identification with the narrative [ . . . ] signals a distancing from the ignoble universe that is presented" (73).

Professor Nagib argues that the films produced during the current resurgence of Brazilian cinema tend to share "a strong historical link with Brazilian films of the past" (xix). The volume's sections cohere in part by each addressing this intersection of past and present. The chapters that focus on the production of Brazilian films, for example, survey the history of Brazil's cinema industry and the varying degrees of state involvement in order better to evaluate the current circumstances and recommend improvements. Diegues, for instance, asks readers to consider that upswings in cinematic production have taken place several times in Brazil's history—sometimes due to financial support from the state— yet at no point, he argues, including the present, has a sustainable industry been developed. Subsequent chapters recognize allusions to or echoes of Cinema Novo and other key moments in the cinematic history of Brazil, and discuss how overlapping themes or political concerns are reconfigured in recent films. One of the recurring concerns in Brazilian cinema is history itself—history of...