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Estamira



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n/a

crew :

Directed by: Marcos Prado
Written by: Marcos Prado
Produced by: José Padilha/ Marcos Prado
DOP: Marcos Prado
Editor: Tuco
Music Score by: Décio Rocha

release date :

2004

Marcos Prado’s documentary is an artistic and profoundly delicate treatment of a complex and tortured individual; that of 62-year-old Estamira. Scavenging through the huge rubbish dumps of Rio de Janeiro, Estamira espouses her unique philosophies on all kinds of grandiose themes. At times, a confusing (but not confused) rant, at others her observations rise to nothing less than poetic majesty. Nothing is relegated to the mundane or the trivial; for Estamira, every aspect of existence has a spiritual implication. She does not subscribe to conventional religion, but her unique observances are no less devout; and, while her distinctive philosophies seem chaotic, they are nevertheless passionate and insightful, reflecting the anarchy of humankind’s tempestuous relationship with the physical and metaphysical universe. Her experience of corporeality is almost impossible to summarise, but its effect on her relationship with the nature of existence is powerful and comprehensive. Her spiritual path has led her away from ordinary society; an alienation which is progressive and inexorable, yet full of poignancy and wonder.


Whenever we are presented with a documentary character as enigmatic as Estamira, the desire to explore their past is impossible to resist. Estamira’s detachment from society operates on both physical and metaphysical levels, both literal and spiritual. There is nothing arbitrary in the correlation between her physical experiences and her disenchantment with the world in which we live. Unsurprisingly, her dreadful life experiences have determined her disparaging worldview - rape, abuse, infidelity, estrangement, poverty, and the loss of faith have combined to produce a damaged and cynical being, who has developed very personal mechanisms for rationalising the brutality of earthly existence. She has been impelled (both literally and metaphorically) to the margins of society, to the places other people deem unfit for habitation; the enormous Jardin Gramacho rubbish dump. “A deposit of remains and carelessness” (as Estamira calls it), this remote and isolated place nevertheless represents the ideal location for her to escape the pressures and expectations of ordinary society in the city below; a society which has persecuted and beaten her relentlessly.


Estamira’s physical path in life has led her through a series of shocking and damaging situations which have left serious mental scarring. At the age of twelve, she was taken from her childhood home by her abusive grandfather to work in a brothel. From there she ran away to Brasilia and began a new life with “the Italian” – a man who she seems to have loved but whose infidelities ultimately broke her. Descriptions of Estamira’s early life are mainly given by her son and eldest daughter, both of whom were of course too young at the time to offer complete, accurate and hence reliable accounts. It seems that Estamira spent some years homeless on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, dividing her time between begging in the city and scavenging at Jardin Gramacho. During this time she gave birth to another daughter who was eventually removed from her care. Estamira herself later mentions an “invisible” child, who possibly died during pregnancy or soon after being born. Irrespective of the lack of clarity about her early life, it was an undeniably grim and poverty-stricken existence. The incomprehensibility of Estamira’s terrible life experiences has manifested itself as extreme and profound spiritual alienation, which has in turn been explained by ordinary society as mental illness.


The film’s opening sequence expertly demonstrates the remoteness of Estamira’s daily existence and her spiritual detachment. Prado’s camera accompanies Estamira on her journey from her primitive shack in the Campo Grande slum of Rio de Janeiro to the Jardin Gramacho dump on the hills above the city. But Prado’s cinematography, its aesthetics and composition, depicts a lonely and forlorn journey, which the filmmaker (and by extension the viewer) can only follow and observe from a distance. Using grainy, black and white film, the unsteady camera follows behind Estamira through the alleyways and streets of her neighbourhood. Even as she boards the bus to take her into the hills above the city, Prado maintains the viewers’ disconnection, showing only extreme close-ups of feet, hands, mouth. Accompanying the images is an unsettling and painful soundtrack, almost hysterical but with moments of beautiful, crystal clarity; there is a semblance of order and lucidity under the façade of disarray, an exquisite sadness. The final leg of her journey is the most arduous, as Estamira climbs the high roads to the dump and finally struggles her way through the mounds of rubbish - there is no path along the road or through the rubbish; this is a path which Estamira must carve out herself. The images are unfamiliar and full of foreboding; it is an ugly and foreign landscape where the presence of living beings is unwelcome – an overt metaphor for the difficult and hazardous journey she has led through life. For Prado, Estamira’s journey to the dump imitates her spiritual journey through life. As she travels to the fringes of human habitation, her mind follows to the extremities of the human psyche.


Estamira’s mental state is inextricably bound to her (sense of) location. In representing the film’s locations, Prado’s combination of filmic elements is often sublime, particularly during the Jardin Gramacho sequences. Despite its unfamiliarity, it is not an entirely alien landscape; it is certainly identifiable as belonging in some way to human society. In the mounds of decomposing rubbish, recognisable objects and items peek through jars, cans, bottles, even a McDonald’s logo on a paper bag. Thousands of huge birds swarm over the dump, picking through the rubbish for any remaining morsel of edible substance. These distinguishable tokens of conventional society mimic the glimpses of clarity in Estamira’s philosophies; an insight into something which seems vaguely familiar, and somehow alluring. This familiarity assumes a far more disturbing air when Prados shows a dead horse swinging on a chain over the rubbish. We can only wonder at the recklessness of human behaviour. Estamira scrutinises form and transparency and the transitory nature of the physical body. This is followed by shots of a small crowd gathering around the corpse of a human being. The stark image communicates with the viewer on a purely intuitive level; exactly how the person ended up at the dump is not of immediate importance. The dump has its own spiritual essence, which is a fundamental component of Estamira’s alienation. Jardin Gramacho is literally a depository of human trash (and there is no need to question the syntactic ambiguity of this sentence). We can then begin to discern the tragic inevitability of Estamira’s own route to the dump.


Regardless of one’s opinion of Estamira’s mental health, she has been rejected and effectively dumped at Jardin Gramacho by a society which has broken her spirit and is subsequently incapable of accommodating her. But that is not to say that Estamira does not want to be at the dump. She confesses to loving it there and is angered by people who speak negatively about it. But we are inclined to think that her love has grown more out of dependency than of any innate relationship with the dump. Not only does the dump provide sustenance and useful materials, but her co-workers do also not subject her to the strict diagnoses of conventional society, rather they accept and appreciate her. When Estamira reads out the doctor’s diagnosis of her illness, the terminology is clinical and impersonal, far removed from the spirituality which is Prado’s focus. By the standards of ordinary society, the word “hallucination” is a negative, undesirable abstraction, but for Estamira it represents a spiritual experience, an intimate connection with the cosmos.


Is it crucial to note that although Estamira has rejected the notion of a benevolent God, she has not stopped believing in his existence. Catholicism is dominant in Brazil generally, and in poorer communities especially. Her eldest daughter tells us that at one time Estamira too was a practicing catholic who lived contentedly with God. The misfortunes of Estamira’s life have changed her relationship with the world and hence with God. Her criticisms of Him are unrestrained and brutal – He is cruel and malevolent and contemptuous of human life. For Estamira, a person whose formative years were based on unquestioning faith, complete rejection of God’s existence is inconceivable, and the resulting spiritual turmoil may have manifested itself outwardly as insanity. It is certainly a significant factor in effecting her alienation from her family, especially her son who believes she is possessed by the devil. But Estamira’s awareness of God’s behaviour is hard to ignore; do those who believe in and worship God avoid poverty or starvation or death? The profundity of the question renders the answer unnecessary. Yet, it is not life itself that Estamira despises; instead, it is people’s blind faith in God’s compassion, their hypocrisy, indulgence and selfish putrification of existence. Her solution is absolute; “incinerate” all human beings and replace them with new beings - an extreme solution perhaps, but none the less insightful. She feels abandoned and betrayed by God, and the course of her alienation from an overwhelmingly Catholic society is, at the very least, understandable.


It would be undesirable (and impossible) to write down and explain Estamira’s philosophical principles of existence, but a final point is worthy of exploration. While Estamira is a scavenger at Jardin Gramacho, perhaps we can view the filmmaker Marcos Prado in a similar way. For Estamira, other people’s waste has value; the food she eats, the clothes she wears, the materials she uses to build and maintain her home. Similarly, Prado finds Estamira at the dump, discarded by society. For him she has a value which ordinary society does not perceive. It would be easy here to enter into a discussion of the ethical issues involved in the exploitation of a vulnerable person for potential commercial gain; but, since Prado’s treatment of his subject is intensely delicate and sympathetic, it is admissible to excuse him. For Prado, Estamira is not simply a documentary subject. She is an intensely spiritual being, who helps us reflect on our own spirituality. This is a truly beautiful film.


Watch


Country: Brazil
Budget: £
Length: 121mins


Pub/2008


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