Travessia

"Travessia" ("Crossing") covers two fronts while analysing Brazilian society after the military coup of 1964: it follows people from many social and artistic backgrounds who lived the era when president João Goulart was overthrown and the military took over in a regime that lasted 21 years; and it also follows anonymous people who also lived the period but weren't part of any political initiative and also young people who only heard about those days. João Batista de Andrade's documentary can be a fascinating and informative experience to everyone curious about the topic, and while I like to follow almost anything related to it and having seen countless films and documentaries over the years, which includes the amazing "Céu Aberto" made by Andrade in 1985, I did not enjoy this particular piece. It was troubled, ugly-looking and without a coherent order of events. It wasn't a complete waste but it certainly lost me for most of it.

Two things must be considered and I somewhat can give a praise to Andrade: it's the kind of material that was done at a right time and with a peculiar way to tell things, showing how ill-informed society became in the following years after the regime ended and with democracy restaured. The second point comes the way Andrade films his experience with digital portable cameras rather than having a large crew behind him, sets being prepared or anything. He interviews people in a very close manner, wheter staying on rooms or their cars or even seated on public spaces, from common people to famous people. It's kind of intimate documentary that feels authentic and never manipulated except in the order things are edited later on. He would not be able to make it today for many obvious reasons but being the political polarization of extremes with violent heated reactions the main problem.

But watching "Travessia" is a painful experience for those exact same qualities mentioned before. The register is ugly to look at it, terrible to hear it at times and it's a concept that didn't suit him at all as evidenced in the experimental "O Caso Matteucci" which follows a 1950's homicide in Goiânia. It looks cheap, it sounds cheap and the camera moving around on people's faces, mouths and forehead make it all nauseating and ugly to see. Therefore, the presentation of many good things end up being wronged at the end.

The other aspect comes from the majority of the people who haven't lived the days of the regime and whenever they speak they just share dumb ideas, praise the military believing things were better (or even those folks lived the era but they weren't part of the main issue so they were clueless to everything), or worst when asked about their thoughts about the period they don't know anything. It's annoying and hurtful hearing those opinions and seeing those moments, really idiotic. How come I never lived through that period and know a lot of stuff from it? How come I easily understood what was being discussed by the artists and the politicians and those folks didn't know? The clueless youngsters seated at the stairs of a famous building on Paulista avenue were the worst: kids with means and huge access to information yet they're so poorly articulate I kept shaking my head in disbelief. It's amazing that Andrade only found careless people when it came to those sequences. Only the taxi driver knew about the issue and made all the valid points. Yet he just interviews people rather than debate with them. A pity since he lived the period and could make some arguments as many political comedies use these days to invalidate dumb logics: trust me, there's plenty to be given and never, at no point is discussed about the casualties of such period - the supporters side, there's always hooray for Marighella killing but what about Herzog's fake suicide?

When it comes to show the survivors of tortures and prisons, the piece gets slightly interesting with some of the testimonies, many unknown facts I didn't know - the woman who helped Prestes during his escape to Uruguay offers one of the best moments and also the media guy talking about his torture and his creepy and unusual reaction to it where he laughed about the absurdity of the event was mindblowing (in a good way). But since I knew most of the events, how they unfolded and the changes it caused in society there wasn't much room for novelty, I was just getting over-informed.

The main thing the piece got it right even a decade later and it's something that never changed: there's no gray area over the topic, either you support it or you don't, I never seen anyone saying that there were issues that weren't so bad or just two problematic things. It's either full support or no support. And if society's degradation exists it's because the education system is failing in teaching the issue, people just follow whatever narrative they want without making some research, or they're incapable of critical thinking with pros and cons. I know that some lucky soul might enjoy this documentary a lot more than I did and learn a lot from it, and I'm okay with that. But since no new light were given on the matter, I was disappointed. 5/10.