Favela Snapshots 2: The Tale of Two Hills

After O Cativeiro, it is a pleasure to write about Patrícia Melo's Inferno, published in 2000, a book that could be crudely described as the film The Godfather II set in favela. Inferno succeeds in almost everyway: it is an exciting, touching, sharp and insightful description of a young man's odysseia through the criminal life. And at the same time an image of a whole society captured in an impossible situation.

The author Patrícia Melo is a novelist, dramaturgist and scriptwriter. Her other works include Acqua toffana (1994), O matador (1995), Elogio da mentira (1998) and Valsa Negra (2003). She's won a number of awards, including Prêmio Jabuti for Inferno in 2003. Fine Brazilian film O Homem do Ano, directed by José Henrique Fonseca, is based on the book O Matador. In 1999, Time Magazine included Melo on the list of 50 "Latin-American Leaders for the New Millenium."

King of the Hill

Inferno is a story of a young boy called Reizinho. Reizinho dreams about becoming a king. He grows without a father in the favela called Berimbau. He becomes addicted to drugs at the age of 11, drinks, sniffs glue and runs away from home. He promises to his mother to stop doing drugs if he gets to work for the local drug gang. Her mother has no other options. Eventually Reizinho becomes the leader of not just Berimbau but also the neighbouring hill and one of the most powerful drug trafficers in Rio. And then it all comes down, as it always does.

Inferno is a story the family. Reizinho's father has abandoned his family, fallen into alcoholism and left his wife Alzira to take care of both Reizinho and Reizinho's sister Carolina. Alzira is under constant strain. She is working as a house maid for a middle-class lady called Juliana, and at home, both Reizinha and Caroline give her more than enough trouble: Reizinho with his career choice in drugs and Caroline by getting constantly pregnant with all the wrong men. Reizinho's desperate search for his father is what largely drives the drama for the first part of the story. Often, the only support for Reizinho is Suzana, an older girl who is something of a foster mother to Reizinho when his real mother fails to understand the boy. Family is where the story starts and family is what finally breaks everything apart.

Inferno is a story about every one in the favela. There are drug-dealers, the ones who drive the drama forward. Reizinho's tutor Miltaõ, who slowly descends into madness. Fake, Reizinho's best friend, aspiring rap artist who in the end is pretty much what his name implies. Leitor, "reader", Reizinho's right hand, who claims to read at least 200 pages every day and is a treasure house of colourful theories.¹ Zezinho, powerful ruler of the neighbouring favela, Reizinho's mentor, husband of Suzana, father of Reizinho's great love Marta - and eventually Reizinho's deadliest enemy. And then there are the normal people, a mixed bunch who might not so much push the story forward but provide it with an infinite depth and humanity.

And Inferno is a story about violence. Violence that is a river.

The stream starts with Dona Juliana, abusing Alzira. Juliana is a useless middle-class housewife, spending her time with forbidden romances, losing weight and amusing her friends by telling everyone how stupid Alzira is. The stream flows downwards: Alzira returns home and beats Reizinho up when the boy constantly fails her tight expectations. The stream becomes a river: Reizinho joins drug gangs and makes his way upwards in the hierarchy through violence. His first kill is something of an initiation rite. His most painful kills are few of his closest friends.

Hectic, sharp and humane

Inferno is written in a fluid, hectic, economical style. Story moves fast, sometimes even two fast: despite spanning nearly 400 pages, some strings are left untied. For an example the father, in the beginning so important, disappears into the background when Reizinho thinks he has been saved. Melo writes highly rhythmic language: onomatopoetic words, sounds, names, lists and swearwords structure the beat of the paragraphs.

Melo is always sharp and amusing. Inferno is full of clever viewpoints and opinions but these are never pushed on the reader. Instead, Melo let's the characters of the story speak out their mind. Churchmen, drug dealers, housewives, sport teachers, hookers and barkeepers, all get their turn to speak. There's even an American film director, "specialized in exotic locations", who comes to favela to film a commercial, since it's such a visually fascinating place (and there's some really good, pure white coca available). As I said, Melo is always funny and critical. And actually, something like that has happened, except it was a music video for Michael Jackson.²

But Melo is also able to build deep, touching characters. Even the less important ones are complex, credible and fully drawn. Despite their shortcomings and blood-stained hands, all the characters are humane and evoke empathy in the reader. There are many genuinely moving moments in the book: the few happy days of love between Marta and Reizinho, when they even go to the toilet together. Reizinho taking care of Leitor, after Leitor is bound to wheelchair and unable to move or speak, Reizinho lovingly calling him the most clever vegetable in Rio. Zezinho's limiteless love for his family, even though he is one of the most ruthless drug trafficers of the story.

And that bittersweet encounter between the father and the son somewhere in the first half of the book: The father is a drunkard, a piece of human garbage thrown somewhere in the Praça Argentina, without a clue about Reizinho. Reizinho has ran away from home, is hopelessly addicted to crack and glue, he's even sold, for a tiny amount of crack, her grandmother's precious trophy from the time she crafted fantasias for the legendary samba school Mangueira. Reizinho sits, tired, hopeless, lost, next to his father. He doesn't say a word, he won't reveal his identity until much later, but somehow the two sad failures feel connected, taking comfort in each other.

Finally, Inferno is a book about the life in a state called cabeça de porco, "head of a pig", a situation without an escape. Like Michael Corleone in Godfather II, Reizinho seems to destroy everything he seeks to protect. Towards the end of the story Reizinho is given two options: Kill Zezinho, the beloved father of his girlfriend Marta and the husband of his foster mother Suzana, neither of whom will ever forgive him. Or get killed by Zezinho. Two impossible options. No way out of the situation. That is the tragedy, the inferno, of the favela.

- - -
Notes

1) Leitor brings to mind William da Silva Lima, O Professor, "The Teacher", one of the founders of Commando Vermelho. Highly intelligent and idealistic, Silva Lima perceived CV as a tool for Leftist Revolution and considered his role to be something of a Brazilian Robin Hood.

2) In february 1996, Commando Vermelho-leader Márcio dos Santos Nepomuceno, or Marcinho VP, made a deal with the producer of a music video for Michael Jackson's song "They don't care about us" to use the Morro Dona Marta in Botafogo as a set for the video.

Favela Snapshots 1: The White Man's Burden

O Cativeiro by Cícero Leitão and Inferno by Patrícia Melo have very little in common. Both have a cover design featuring a picture of favela and a story largely set on a morro, but other than that, they are pretty much opposites of the each other. I'll start with the worse one.

A few notes first. I read the books in portuguese, but Melo's works are widely available as translations. And O Cativeiro, on the other hand, isn't really worth the trouble. Also, contrary to my usual way, I stole the pictures for these posts from the net. I unfortunately left my tools for editing images in Rio. All the credits and honour to the creators of these photos.

White man's burden

I initially grabbed O Cativeiro just because it seemed like an easy and entertaining read, something to practice my portuguese with, and because it was displayed visibly in my favourite book store in Ipanema. Easy to read, yes; entertaining, hardly. And apparently the reason for that spot of honor at the book store was because the book has a scene set in that particular shop.

O Cativeiro is an ordinary police thriller, telling the story of a young, promising TV-reporter William Rossi. He happens to come across a suitcase containing some highly valuable secrets and soon gets hijacked by a bunch of drug trafficers. As the police, including William's cousin Giovana, get on the William's trail, they find out that the one who is pulling the strings is actually a highly powerful politician, with number of corrupt cops on his side...

Unfortunately, the one behind it all is pretty apparent to reader right from the beginning, and the rest of the suspense is based on trying to guess which of the insignificant, one-dimensional cop characters get whacked and what is the deadly secret in the suitcase. Except that reader doesn't really give a damn. The plot is full of holes, the writing is rather amateurish and the reader is always three strides ahead of the characters.

Why then do I bother to write about this book? Because it is also an interesting, though scary visualisation of the mindscape of the succesful, professional middle-class in Rio.

Professional-class heroes

The profile of Williams, a professional class hero: Williams is "handsome and charismatic", "calm, intelligent and polite". He is highly educated and was also succesful in the army: the best shooter in the class, he was begged to pursue a military career but his devotion telejournalism won. Seeing his face in television is his biggest dream. Being so good with firearms, though, proves to be a useful survival skill as Williams manages to single-handedly escape from his torturers. Also, note the pseudo-English name of the hero.

Interestingly, three most significant police characters are women, all of them "trained", "attractive" and "well-formed." All the main characters are described as highly ambitious and devoted to their work. Most of the heroes are also naturally blond. For an example Ana, Williams' ex-girlfriend and also a succesful journalist, still desperately aching for Williams, has "blue, intelligent eyes" and "a sensational body".

Monsters and losers

In O Cativeiro, there are two kinds of people in favela, the bad guys - traficantes, vagabonds, marginals - and the ordinary people.

The bad guys are either black or mulato. They are vulgar, cruel and stupid. They constantly fumble even in their profession of crime, relying solely on firepower and numbers instead of skill or tactics. Most of the young people in favela, too lazy to get an education, are more or less linked to the organized crime: "Unoccupied youngsters were talking banalities in front of the habitation. When they passed by, they shot malicious looks on the direction of hips of Luciane, which she moved gracefully." When not mongering vicious commands and barking at each other, the bad guys always talk "banalities."

Favela is a nightmare landscape of poverty and dangers. Right after Williams espaces he stumbles on a clandestine cemetary, with human skulls and bones. He feels like he's "in the middle of a Stephen King novel." Diabolic funk pulses somewhere on the background.

Later, he meets a few of the normal residents of favela. Old couple hesitantly helps him to escape. White husband Manolo manages to craft a plan to get him out of his house. He masquerades Williams as a part of a carnivalistic crew promoting an electorial candidate, mostly to safe his own covardly ass and partly because he bitterly hates traficers: he lost two of his sons to the traffic. Manolo's wife Dona Maria is "black and weights almost hundred kilos. She passes most of her time complaining about her aching feet." She is stupid and superstitious: Dona Maria watches a lot of television, so she recognizes Williams, but because Williams has been declared dead in the television she thinks that she's seeing a zombie. After all, she also saw Michael Jackson's video The Thriller on the telly.

Sadly, the cover of Williams is busted by another favelado, a silly young girl Michele. Michele dreams of a glamorous life and when the colourful electorial crew, with MCs and samba bands, rides into favela, she thinks that her chance is here. She doesn't like studying, so she puts on her better clothes and pushes herself into the glamorous group. There she meets Williams, whom she also recognizes as she too watches a lot of television. Williams begs her to help him, which she gladly promises to do. Of course, Michele immediately calls all her girlfriends and soon the whole of the favela knows - including the gangsters pursuiting Williams

Thus, we learn that the reason for all the misery in the life of favelados is mainly their lack of ambition. A lazy bunch, they spend their time watching television - whereas, we have earlier learned, the heroes just can't sit still and channel surf even when the've been ordered for a sick leave. There are those that get shown on the TV and those that just watch it: the active and the passive, the professionals and the losers. Favelados spend their time brooding, complaining and talking bullshit with their friends. They do, naturally, dream about the good life, but they do pretty much nothing about: the old couple is hoping to win in the lottery, and Michele, despising school and hard work, builds her future on a vague scheme of seducing somebody famous.

John Rambos of everyday

But the clumsy criminals of the favelas wouldn't probably pose such a threat to the white professional class, if they weren't lead by the corrupted upper classes. This reflects the growing insecurity of the middle-class: they are losing their trust on authorities who are failing to control the raising wave of violence. The corrupt politicians are clearly the target to blame, especially populists with leftist sympathies. O Cativeiro is a paranoid cry for help against these threats from all sides and a tribute to the brave vigilantes among the ordinary people. There is still need for John Rambos of everyday.

There is one imaginitive scene in the book. A crime boss is captured by the good cops and taken away for interrogation and torture. The torturer is called Dr. Mengele. He's an obviously crazy old man with a toolbox of strange, sharp medical tools and a heavy german accent. He starts his work in a rather unorthodox way and when the hardened criminal, expecting a painful torture, wonders what the hell the doctor is doing, Mengele slips that the sex-change is painless operation if the patient would just please keep still. The criminal speaks immediately and so would I. This might be funny in a film of Quentin Tarantino, but in the context of O Cativeiro, the scene is plain ridiculous. Of course "the doctor" is an actor. But the trafficers are just so simple.

These are not just personal attitudes of the author, but reflect a wider opinion of the society. As a study by Nova S/B and Ibope - published in O Globo ("Aculpa é dos otros" and "Entre os mais ricos, tortura é aceita por 42%; nos pobres, por 19%", March 9th 2008) - shows, 26% percent of Brazilians accept the use of torture as means of interrogation. There is a significant difference in the opinions between the classes: 42% of the higher income population accepts torture, where as "only" 19% supports the practise among those earning less than a minimum wage. "Rights? Human rights are for humans", sums one of the O Cativeiro's heroes it all, when capturing a black skinned, demonic traficante whining for his human rights.

Admiring the distance

I am in Belem now, up in the northern Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon. 50 hours in the bus turned into more than 60 as a small riot, including a bonfire of tires and road blocks, interupted the journey. As the sun set and the drizzling rain started, a tired looking Policia Militar-officer, toting a H&K, managed to send the people back home.

I was warned against such a long ride, again and again, but I enjoyed the trip. It's much better than flying, as long as the bus is okay and you're not competing against time, that is. You'll get much better idea of the distances in this vast country. There's nothing you can really do in the bus - just enjoy some good music, read a little and watch as the incredible nature of Brazil rolls past the window. Occasionally something goes wrong, so you'll wait an hour or so at the gas station as the bus gets fixed. Sit back, have a beer and practice your portuguese - there's always someone in the bus who really wants to know what on earth the gringo is doing up here.

Belem. The metropolis of Amazônas, they call it. Towering highrises, crumbling colonial buildings reminding of the days of the rubber boom, bustling markets, huge old cranes creaking at the harbour, all the smells of the ageless river and dead fishes, screaming of vultures hunting for leftovers, fruits in a thousand colours and forms. Wide smiles, though few teeth, and both thumbs up. Tudo bem? Tudo bem.

Water, water, everywhere. Pouring tropical rain turns the streets into little rivers, every day. An umbrella is the local accessory number one: both guarda-chuva and guarda-sol, protection against the rain and the merciless sun. It's said that the weather gives the rhythm to the local life: Let's meet after the rain.

And the rainforest, everywhere. While out there the Amazon is destroyed at an alarming speed, the life still tries to fight back, creeping into every little space available. From my window I can see a concrete wall of a skyscraper, and there, in the middle of the wall, in the height of 20 meters, grows a tree. The little puddles of water in the shower, never quite drying in this humidity, are bustling with insects and worms within minutes. Disgusted, at first I tried to stomp them to death: what a waste of time, what an insanity. Life is everywhere here, in a thousand shapes and sizes. Live and let live.

Now I am waiting for a river boat up to Manaus and from there I aim to continue to Colombia. My computer I left in Rio, so no music or pictures here for a month or so. But I have time to read now, so I'll try to post an occasional book review. I have a lot of interesting reading to make my backpack more challenging to haul around.

Guilty pleasures

For a while now, I've had this weird feeling that something is missing. A background noise, a smell perhaps, something. Until I realized what it is: reggaeton. In the rest of the Latin America there is no way to escape reggaeton - even the monkeys must be pumping it in the Venezuelan jungle - and in Brazil I haven't heard a single "boom-chi boom-chick"-beat. A continent divided by the two languages.

I didn't imagine missing reggaeton. It's not a sound that would hold a very high esteem in my native Finland, and I can't say I liked it that much either. Yet recently I've developed it into something of a guilty pleasure. Up north reggaeton usually gets dismissed as the cheesy Latin bastard-son of hip-hop and reggae. Language is again one obvious barrier, but it's a matter of cultural understanding too. I stumbled on this great blog, by the Hunter College researcher and journalist Raquel Z. Rivera, and reading such an in-depth analysis on the genre and it's background makes also the music much easier to grasp. And there are really great reggaeton artists that should appeal outside the Hispanic world too.

The greatest of them all, to me, is Tego Calderon. There is no match for his laidback flow, scarred voice, fat accent and the calm, super-cool style that would eat the aggressive boasting of youngsters for breakfast, without even breaking the sweat. And it doesn't hurt that Tego's beats include few of the most interesting fusions of various Caribbean and Latin American music styles. Seeing is believing: I witnessed Tego live at Buenos Aires, and there is no way to beat his charisma.

Rivera and Frances Negrón-Muntaner descibe the importance of Calderon in breaking the reggaeton into the main-stream of Puerto Rican culture in a highly interesting article Reggaeton Nation: "A turning point in gaining critical attention was the musically, poetically, and politically sophisticated 2003 debut album of Tego Calderón. His populist lyrics — which reminded many of salsa’s El Sonero Mayor, Ismael Rivera — together with his innovative musical fusions, use of world-renowned musicians in live shows, and charismatic yet humble demeanor appealed to the old-school salsa lovers and the intellectual left."

Allow me to introduce The Underdog. Here's a couple of my personal favourite songs. First two from the album The Underdog / El Subestimado and next two from the most recent album El Abayarde Contra Ataca. And to illustrate Tego's love for the salsa, the song Llora, Llora features the Venezuelan salsa-legend Oscar d'Leon.

Tego Calderon: Slow Mo (zShare)
Tego Calderon: Llora, Llora (feat. Oscar d'Leon) (zShare)
Tego Calderon: Ni Fu Ni Fa (zShare)
Tego Calderon: Los Mios (feat. Pirulo) (zShare)

Super Classics of Funk Carioca: Boladona

There is no question that Tati Quebra Barraco is the baddest bitch in the funk game. If funk carioca often tends to treat the ladies with a highly objectifying, though playful attitude, Tati is there to strike back for the girls. The big lady beats the guys in their own game: Tati's lyrics are openly, explicitely sexual, super-funny and dirty enough to make a grown man blush like a teenager sneaking to buy his first porn mag at a local kiosk.

As Paul Sneed wrote on Tati: "She sings that she doesn’t like “little dicks, “Não gosto de piru pequeno,” and graphically describes what she does to the men she catches. She is perhaps the most enduring and widely known female entertainer in funk and almost all of her songs play with the objectification of men and the liberation of the female libido."

Tati also got into the headlines of the tabloids some days ago, as her brother confessed the killing of his ex-wife. The motive for the murder was that the poor woman had been possessed. I didn't read which spirit, demon or other evil entity had taken over the victim, but from the angle of the recent development in the Brazilian religious field the motive isn't that bizarre. Pentecostal christian cults like hugely popular Universal Church - sometimes described as "the McDonald's of religion" - have popped up everywhere and are actually holding sermons to banish the orixa-spirits of the umbanda- and candomble-religions.

But more on the affairs of faith later. Here's a classic Tati-song, produced by DJ Marlboro.

Tati Quebra Barraco: Boladona (zShare)

And now for something totally different

Huoratron's $$ Troopers video has nothing to do with the usual content of my blog, but I have to post it as both the song and the video are just so awesome. I've worked as a VJ for Huoratron on a number of occasions, ever since Koneisto 2003-festival, and it's always been a pleasure to co-operate with this guy (I have nothing to do with this video though). Now the long avaited single on the man's New Judas-label is finally out and is getting everyone very exited. I'll go and buy one as soon as I get back to Finland.

The Divided City I

"Exite o Rio de Janeiro, o Rio de Janeiro e o Rio de Janeiro. Três cidades que occupam o mesmo espaçi geográfico, mas raramente o mesmo espaço simbólico." -Silvio Essinger: Batidão



Rio de Janeiro is a divided city, as is every third world metropolis. But Rio is divided in a unique way, because of the geography of the city. The city is a mosaic of the sea and the city, the hills and the rainforests, a labyrinth of the asphalt and the unpaved paths.



The poor in Rio live right next to the rich. They haven't been pushed to the fringes of the city, which would be the usual solution to get the slums out of sight and out of mind, nor has the middle-class fled to seek refuge in the suburbs, as is the case in the North American cities. The poor have built their favelas on the hills overlooking the richer neighbourhoods.



Such proximity evokes fear in the rich. Poverty and social problems breed violence and Rio has plenty of both. The media is happy to pour gas into the flames. News of murders, robberies, kidnappings and car highjackings. The rich are caging themselves in, seeking protection from the dangers real and imagined.



This is the first Rio, a city of metal bars, locks and private security. A city of door-men, red carpets and refridged, freezing air. A city hidden by behind the darkened windows and bullet proof glass. A city of birdcages.



I had planned to file these images in my Flickr under a collection called Photo reportages. But it sounded too pompous, as professional photo journalism these pictures are not. They move somewhere between pure artistic expression and an attempt at a social documentary, yet I do try to convey an honest (if somewhat personal) image of the issues tackled. I ended up naming the collection Photo essays. Maybe that would be more accurate. First "essay", The Divided City, is about the social divide in Rio de Janeiro and I just got the part one - A Life in a Birdcage - on-line. Please follow the link below to see all the images in their proper size and order. The second part "A View to the Sea", on life in the favela of Babilônia, will hopefully soon follow.

View A Life in a Birdcage as a slideshow.