After a few slow news days, the talk of the town is Sequestro, a new documentary film about the Anti-Kidnapping Unit in São Paulo. While I’m sure it will be entertaining on the level of Elite Squad, it won’t help Brazil’s image abroad being that of a place of violence. On the other hand, we have the upcoming animation called Rio, so those are your apparent choices.

I’ll forever remember taking my friend to the cinema to watch City of God and when we left, he said if Brazil is like that, he has no interest in ever going there. Of course, this is a stupid comment but I imagine it passing through the minds of many viewers who previously knew close to nothing about Brazil. Interesting, though, that in American action movies, the American characters go abroad to blow up someone else’s country yet in Brazilian films that are successful in the international arena, they enact violence against themselves. Both characterizations aren’t far from reality but with the ever-increasing use of computers in our daily lives, reality isn’t what it used to be. Living vicariously is just more entertaining.

If anyone really wants to show an anti-kidnapping film about Brazil, they should make a film about us Brazil bloggers (half-joking) since we tend to focus on stopping Brazil’s image from being kidnapped for dubious reasons.

More Info

Movie Review of Sequestro.