Moving Pictures

What’s Real and What’s Written

'PIXOTE' BRINGS HYBRID FILM MAKING TO THE BELCOURT

BY JOE NOLAN, FILM CRITIC

One of the most interesting recent trends in movies has been the blurring of the line between documentary and narrative filmmaking. I haven’t heard discussions about this trend or read articles about it, but it’s real and it’s relevant given that Hèctor Babenco’s searing 1980 film Pixote: The Law of the Weakest is coming to The Belcourt Theatre this month.

This blurring of real life and made-up movies didn’t come out of thin air. Werner Herzog’s made a number of pictures that dance between film fiction and documentary, and decades of found footage films have grown a massive audience for horror stories that screen like documentaries. There are lots of candidates for the grandfather of narrative/documentary mashups, but my vote goes to Orson Welles’ F for Fake (1973), which is an experimental movie essay on the very notion of authenticity that asks viewers if seeing is actually believing. The movie doesn’t present itself as a fiction, but it’s full of the movie magic devices and techniques we normally expect from story films. Orson Welles plays himself, but there’s no denying that he is putting on a performance in every frame he fills. F for Fake , like any good magic trick, like any good con, is made-up of equal parts charm and deception. But, like a carnival game or some sorcerer’s showcase in Las Vegas, getting fooled is all part of the fun.

More recent examples of the trend include Bart Layton’s American Animals (2018), which features a great cast (Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan) re-enacting a real life art book heist at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky. Layton’s version of the crime story plays alongside interviews with the real life criminals sharing their versions of the actual break-in and theft. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020) appears to be a documentary about the last night at a Las Vegas bar before it closes. In reality, the Roaring ‘20s watering hole was staged inside of a real bar in New Orleans, and the patrons who gather there to say goodbye to their favorite dive are local non-actors cast by directors Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross. Flee (2021) uses animation to tell the true story of a man who fled war-torn Afghanistan for Denmark. I’m not a fan of animated sequences in documentary films, and it was probably only a matter of time before factual filmmakers went full cartoon. That aside, the animation here gives director Jonas Poher Rasmussen free reign visually speaking, and it makes narrative movie techniques like flashbacks feel natural.

Pixote: The Law of the Weakest begins with a score of Bernard Herrman-esque strings and director Hèctor Babenco’s writing and directing credits. Another credit reveals that the movie is based on a novel — Childhood of the Dead by José Louzeiro. In the film’s first scene Babenco addresses the camera directly while standing on a sloping hillside near a crowded favella in São Paulo, Brazil. Babenco relates that Brazil’s massive population of children living in the streets with no family connections cannot be subjected to criminal prosecution. This leaves them targeted by criminals who use little kids to do some of the dirtiest and most dangerous work in the country’s drug and sex trades. Fernando Ramos da Silva was an 8-year-old child actor who had appeared in stage plays before being cast as the film’s title character. That said, he was also living in poverty with his widowed mother and nine siblings in a shack in Diadema on the outskirts of São Paulo, and didn’t have to do much research to understand Pixote’s life. This hybrid movie is a classic because of its one-of-a-kind depictions of real life street kids in Brazil, and because the line between what’s real and what’s written literally means life and death here. Fernando Ramos da Silva became a star when Pixote achieved international acclaim, but his struggles to achieve literacy inhibited his acting career. He was gunned down by police at the age of 19.

Pixote screens at the Belcourt Theatre on Tuesday, March 7, at 8 p.m..

Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www. joenolan.com.