Babilônia 2000

Eduardo Coutinho's 2000 Brazilian documentary was shot in the Babilonia and Chapeu Mangueira favelas of Rio de Janeiro on the last day of 1999. While the fireworks display is prepared on Copacabana beach below, the camera stays in the houses on the hill. Coutinho's method is to ask one question: what do you expect from the new year. The answers differ completely; work, health, nothing at all. Some do not take the question seriously and others talk at length, and the camera cuts away from none of them. The documentary's political argument is stated nowhere. The distance between the display below and the life above is established simply by placing the two locations side by side. Coutinho was the most influential figure in Brazilian documentary and this is among the purest examples of his method. Who it's for: those who like oral history documentary and Brazilian cinema. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a structured narrative; the film is a series of interviews and offers nothing else.