Master, a Building in Copacabana

A block of flats in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. The director and his crew move into the building and talk to the residents. The porter, the maids, pensioners, young people, those who have lived there for decades and those who just moved in. Everyone speaks in their own flat among their own things: how they came, what work they do, what they lost. The camera does not leave the building. Eduardo Coutinho directs. His method is the same here: ask and let be. There is almost no editing; people are not cut while speaking and the director never states his own view. The structure rests on a place. The building is a sample: people from entirely different classes live at one address and all their stories connect to the history of Brazil. The difference between the maids' rooms and the porter's flat and the apartments upstairs stands quietly inside the narrative; the film does not argue it, it shows it. Its strongest passages are the older residents; what they say about memory, migration and loss is the centre of gravity. Visually almost nothing happens: a fixed camera, living rooms and people talking. Who it is for: viewers who like Brazilian documentary and work in oral history. Who it is not for: it is all talk, the structure repeats, and there is no plot.