Lengthy but enthralling, Carandiru is Hector Babenco's (The Kiss of the Spiderwoman) loose take on the events which occurred in the titular prison, a notorious Sao Paolo detention centre, back in 1992. Carandiru housed something in the region of 700 inmates (its capacity was half that) and the prisoners established their own hierarchy, which ocassionally spilled over into violence. Most of the events are played through the medium of a haunted-looking doctor (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos) who is brought into the jail to warn the inmates of the dangers of Aids. Thus, through the eyes of the physician that we come to know these characters and understand the circumstances which led them to end up in this infernal place.
A film where the threat of violence doesn't so much hang over as saturate it, Carandiru is harsh, brutal but enlightening. Observing the plight of its subjects in a detached tone, the director skilfully refuses to judge the prisoners until tragic events take hold within the walls of the jail. That the narrative is unconventional and the fact that the prisoners have little obvious relation to each other may irk some. But while the film's pacing does certainly lag in some areas, the extraordinary dynamism of many of the mini-sagas recounted by the prisoners richly compensates.
