Tropa de Elite

My flight to Brazil creeps ever closer and I'm trying to surround myself with any and everything Brazilian to facilitate my complete immersion into Bahian Portuguese once I touch down in Salvador. I finally got around to watching Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad), an extremely gritty movie revolving around an officer in Rio de Janeiro's BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion), a specialized, brutal, and almost para-military anti-drug police squad. Like one of my favorite movies of all-time, Cidade de Deus (City of God), this film explores the dual-realities of Brazil - rich and poor, black and white. Brazil is a world of extremes. The beauty and warmth of the landscape and culture cannot be fully understood and appreciated without having some idea of the economic hardship and crushing poverty that define life for so many. Cidade de Deus explores life from the perspective of young kids growing up in the favelas (slums) of Rio in the 1960s and documents how the informal, almost benign early drug trade began to grow into the violent crisis that it has become today. However, it portrays the life of the poor through fairly stylized imagery, juxtaposing the violence and death caused by the drug trade with the story of one young kid able to survive based on his wits and love of photography. The film is almost reminiscent of a fairly tale, a story of hope, friendship, and triumph amidst poverty and struggle. The style of filming and soundtrack is actually very reminiscent of another recent "fairy-tale in the slums" story, Slumdog Millionaire. Urban squalor and poverty is presented as a reality that can be overcome through friendship, love, and a little bit of luck.

However, Tropa de Elite presents a much more grim portayal of Rio's favelas. The story revolves around the violence of the drug trade and explores the relationship between police corruption, the drug dealers in the favelas, and the BOPE officers who despise them both and work to restore some semblance of order by any means necessary. The film also explores the roles of young, rich Brazilian who help fuel the drug trade through their casual drug use, and do-gooders who befriend dealers as a means to establish and work through NGOs to provide much needed educational and health related services to the majority of residents in the favelas who have no relationship with the elicit drug trade. The film is based on a book written by a sociologist and two former BOPE captains. It became a controversial nationwide phenomenon in Brazil in 2007 as described in this New York Times article. Tropa raised questions about police brutality and violence, but the main character became a sort of cult hero. I think my Brazilian host sister and her friends actually dressed as BOPE officers during Carnaval last year (still not sure what to make of that.)

I would love to hear the opinions of anyone that has seen the movie. And I have included the film's trailer below. I also know a lot of people who have worked with different NGOs and organization's in Rio's favelas, and would love to hear perspectives on how the presence of drug dealers and effected your work, and how that compared to, or was misrepresented in this film. And if you haven't already seen this film, definitely do! It may not become your favorite movie ever, and it's probably not as fun to watch as Cidade de Deus or Slumdog Millionaire, but it will definitely make you think. And isn't that what good art is meant to do?

Portuguese Trailer


English Trailer