The Jungle Book

Even Argentina got one. Some countries without luxuries like tap water an paved roads did it, too. But not Brazil. Why? simple: our movie industry is poverty-oriented. We love our misery an are not afraid of showing it. Ok. A slum here and there is kosher, but to become a huge hit a Brazilian movie must show slums, social violence, black kids beaten by evil cops or a thousand miles of plain old fashioned rural poverty.

After a while it gets boring. Same old story with other characters. Even the actors are the same. And no, you can’t do it without a ‘denounce’ tone. A great little movie, Deus é Brasileiro (God is Brazilian) was ignored by the critics because it dared to be fun. To entertain and to show poor people being happy. Yes, Virginia, even poor people smile, love, have fun. They may be poor but they don’t feel miserable. At least not as miserable as the onnanist left-wing intellectuals believe they are.

We have a few pure-entertainment movies, but they’re not taken as seriously as the “real” movies.

Of course, American movies are allowed to be as fun and alienating as possible, because, well, that’s Hollywood. Point is: People love Hollywood-style movies, unless it’s a brazilian Hollywood-style movie. Our moviemakers are not allowed to be vain.

But there’s a small light of hope. Globo Filmes, a movie company tied to Brazil’s largest TV network release movie after movie, usually based on their own TV shows, or plain simple pure-entertainment movie. People are starting to react, and the public like what it see.

Maybe in one or two generations Brazil will have a great movie industry, like it used to have, back in the 40s/50s.