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Carandiru (2004)

Enrique Díaz , Wagner Moura , Hector Babenco  |  R |  DVD
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)

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Product Details

  • Actors: Enrique Díaz, Wagner Moura, Caio Blat, Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos, Milton Gonçalves
  • Directors: Hector Babenco
  • Writers: Hector Babenco, Dráuzio Varella, Fernando Bonassi, Victor Navas
  • Producers: Carlos Eduardo Rodrigues, Daniel Filho, Fabiano Gullane
  • Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
  • Language: Portuguese (Dolby Digital 5.1)
  • Subtitles: English, French, Thai, Korean
  • Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
    PLEASE NOTE:
    Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click .
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: R (Restricted)
  • Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
  • DVD Release Date: September 21, 2004
  • Run Time: 145 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0002LJTIG
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60,351 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • Learn more about "Carandiru" on IMDb

Special Features

  • Deleted scenes
  • The making of Carandiru
  • Historical footage

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The setting is grim, but Carandiru is easily one of Brazilian filmmaker Hector Babenco's most living, thriving works, with scores of powerful performances and an engaging style underscoring the cathartic power of storytelling. Based on a bestselling novel, Carandiru concerns an oncologist (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos) who treats patients at Sao Paulo's House of Detention, a terrible place largely policed from within by longtime prisoners. The doctor is specifically interested in collecting blood samples for an HIV study, but the more prisoners open up to him, the more compassionate and committed he becomes about their survival. Babenco's episodic structure gives Carandiru a dimension of memory and constant shots of energy, so that even the most horrifying events--drug-related murder, rape, revenge--can't drive this tale into abject misery. Based on actual events, the drama's climactic police raid on the prison (a reconstruction of a 1992 riot called the Carandiru Massacre) is a tour de force. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

Acclaimed international filmmaker Hector Babenco dramatically captures the powerful intensity of this true story of hope and survival inside Brazil’s most notorious prison. Based on a true story of the day of the Carandiru massacre.

Customer Reviews

No rules, no pain, no hopes. Hiram Gomez Pardo  |  3 reviewers made a similar statement
The same goes for the interviews by the prisoners during the riot scenes. Marc A. Coignard  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By RaabH
Format:DVD
This is much more than a prison riot film. In fact, the entire first two hours are spent exploring the lives and back stories of a select group of prisoners. Using a technique that will be familiar to viewers of the HBO series "Oz", we follow each of the prisoners in flashback through the series of events that led to their imprisonment. We also come to know what level of status (or lack of it) they each hold within the prison pecking order.

The result is for the most part a detailed portrait of daily life at Carandiru -- rivalries, loyalties, fights, love affairs, drug abuse, and murder -- along with a portrayal of the warden and his staff that is unexpectedly sympathetic.

It is worth noting that, while the conditions inside are certainly filthy and deplorable, the prisoners enjoy a surprising amount of freedom compared to similar facilities in the States. What surprised me most is a "family day" that is held each year where parents, wives, girlfriends, and children come to mingle throughout the facility with their jailed loved ones. Families picnic together and couples enjoy conjugal visits.

When the riot eventually does break out, it is not simply because the prisoners are rebelling against the poor conditions .. it is also because of one or more events that take place. (Nobody is quite capable of saying exactly which event or combination of them.) What is far more clear is the brutality shown by the police riot squad as it takes control of the facility once the prisoners have surrendered their weapons. Blood literally runs through the hallways and down the stairwells. Having come to know many of the prisoners as people makes these scenes very difficult to watch.

Overall this is an excellent movie, although anyone expecting 2-1/2 hours of hostage-taking and violence will be disappointed by its insistence on first taking the measure of the prisoners' humanity.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An Epic Film of Monumental Importance! September 22, 2004
Format:DVD
CARANDIRU is in every sense of the term an Epic film: based on a novel by a physician who wrote of his experiences in the largest prison in South America (Carandiru housed 7000 inmates in Sao Paulo, Brazil before its implosion in 2002), it documents the barely known Carandiru Massacre of 1992; it examines the individual lives, psyches, and social behaviors of prisoners in a vastly more comprehensive manner than any other film about prisons; it captures on film the squalor and tragedy and even comedy of a segregated male population who must find a means to live despite the deprivation of prison life. Hector Babenco ('Pixote', 'Kiss of the Spider Woman', etc) has written a screenplay based on the novel 'Esatacao Carandiru' by Drauzio Varella, the physician who was drawn into the drama of Carandiru after his initial academic foray into gathering blood samples from the prisoners for his work on the epidemiology of AIDS. As portrayed with great tenderness by Luis Carlos Vasconcelos, the doctor becomes father confessor to the men within the squalid walls of Carandiru, gradually unveiling the secret pasts of the prisoners - their backgrounds, their reasons for incarceration, their modes of behavioral adaptation to life in the vast structures of Carandiru. Babenco has cast this enormous crew of prisoners with actors who are so fine that they offer some of the finest character cameos on film: Ivan de Almeida ('Ebony') is the prisoner gatekeeper who wisely controls the comings and goings of the men; Lazaro Ramos ('Ezequiel') is but one of the drug addicts whose dependence on drugs is far from his pre-prison life as a well-known surfer; Caio Blat ('Deusdete') and Wagner Maura ('Zico') grew up as orphaned brothers only to be joined later by separate crimes as roommates in Carandiru; Milton Goncalves ('Chico') provides the doctor with first-class medical assistance while falling in love with ( and marrying) 'Lady Di' (in a breakthrough role of the gifted actor Rodrigo Santoro, whose roles in 'The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone', 'Behind the Sun', and even 'Charlie's Angels - Full Throttle' show promise of a very important screen presence), and many, many more. The cast includes both female and male actors (Carandiru has visiting days when families can see the prisoners) and without exception, each role is etched into the canvas that is Carandiru in an extraordinary fashion. The point of the film seems to be a prelude to the last thirty minutes that very graphically depicts the riot and massacre of 111 prisoners by the prison's riot squad. But it is the scope of humanity examined by Babenco that creates our identification with the victims and survivors of this tragedy. Extra features on the DVD include deleted scenes, each of which is so fine that it seems a shame they landed on the cutting room floor, and a series of scenes being filmed showing Babenco in action as a director - certainly some of the more tender interactions between directors and actors on film as well as an insight into the way in which directors communicate their vision (and achieve it) through the filming process. There are also interviews with author Varella who has important asides about the adaptation of his book

The musical score is hauntingly appropriate, the camera work is some of the best you'll see in today's cinema, and the overall effect after the film is over is one of awe and respect for the director and the actors and the indictment of prison life to which we rarely have access. A brilliant motion picture, worth more than Five Stars!
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
In Sao Paolo, Brazil, there used to be a prison named Carandiru, which was torn down in 2002. Despite the fact that the Carandiru prison no longer exists, its haunting history cannot escape the audience. It is through Hector Babenco's direction the audience can view the brutality that took place an October day in 1992 when 300 police officers massacred 111 inmates. This dramatization is based on true events, and it is told through the testimony of a physician who worked in the prison before the riots lead to the carnage.

The story follows Dr. Varella who arrives to the prison to investigate AIDS and HIV, which was a rather new disease at the time. Through Dr. Varella the audience gets to meet a number of characters with diverse pasts, and how they ended up in Carandiru. Most of them are criminals in one way or another, however, their stories bring humanity to the dire prison. The stories depict the convicts' feelings and their lives in the prison as they have to adjust to the life in the overcrowded penitentiary. It is the struggle for an ordinary life in the jail that becomes the focus of the film, which also enhances the revolting behavior of the police force.

The depicted humanity magnifies the violence that is brought to the Carandiru through the 300 police officers that stormed the jail with assault rifles. This is reinforced through survivors of the bloody assault as they sit in on interviews in which they disclose their feeling in regards to what happened. However, Babenco does not reach the same level with Carandiru as he did with Pixote when it was released in the early 80s. The main reason is that the film feels somewhat staged as some scenes become slightly awkward unlike the rough depiction of Pixote. Regardless of having a staged atmosphere Carandiru offers a terrific cinematic experience, which will offer deliberate reflection upon injustice as the police force was not charged for anything after having murdered 111 inmates of Carandiru.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars great product
this is one of the best movies from brazil and it' s a great inspiration to present a little piece of reality
Published 8 months ago by Ivan Vigil Molina
5.0 out of 5 stars top notch docudrama
one name hector babenco. truly an artist in all of his films from his academy award winning "pixote" and "kiss of the spiderwoman" as well as award winning "at play in the fields... Read more
Published 21 months ago by offthewall
5.0 out of 5 stars Flawed in pieces, but very powerful as a whole
Sometimes I wish there was a 4.5 star rating...

There are flaws - the doctor at the center of this prison
story stays a grinning Buddha- like cipher, some of the... Read more
Published 21 months ago by K. Gordon
4.0 out of 5 stars Grim prison film
Carandiru is a Brazillian film about the famous prison in Sao Paulo (now destroyed) where a riot back in the early 90's led to the police storming the facility and killing over 100... Read more
Published on February 14, 2011 by Michael Fishman
5.0 out of 5 stars A moving story on relationships in- and outside the prison.
The world of prisoners in the metropole Sao Paulo is told from the perspective of a medical doctor who gives orientation on HIV-Aids prevention. Read more
Published on September 18, 2009 by J. Oranje
4.0 out of 5 stars A Movie Composed Of Individual Stories
One could easily get the wrong impression of the storyline here. Yes, it is based on the true-life massacre at the Brazilian prison in 1992 BUT that story is only shown in the last... Read more
Published on February 2, 2009 by Craig Connell
5.0 out of 5 stars BRAZILIAN PRISON FILM THAT DOUBLES AS A DOCUDRAMA
This film offers a different,(to say the least),perspective on prison life and the way that the system is run in other countries. Read more
Published on February 21, 2008 by The Blacker Spaniel
5.0 out of 5 stars barbaric brazilian prison
Built in 1928 to hold 4,000 prisoners, the Carandiru House of Detention in Sao Paulo housed 7,500 violent criminals and was the largest prison in Latin America. Read more
Published on January 24, 2007 by Daniel B. Clendenin
1.0 out of 5 stars WASTE OF MONEY
Long and boring. Cameos/flashbacks of various prisoners as they explain to the doctor how they ended up in prison. Nothing extraordinary. Lousy filming/directing. Read more
Published on August 10, 2006 by Wonderer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Movie...If you liked City of God, You'll Love this Movie.
This movie surpassed my expectations by far, and best of all... my girlfriend loved it as well (she is a tougher critic!). Any who, you won't be diasppointed.
Published on June 25, 2006 by Eduardo Villarreal
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