Brainstorm (2000 film)

The film opens as Mr. Wilson reads a letter he has received from his son Neto, in which Neto declares his contempt for his father. It is followed by a flashback to explain the story; Neto, a São Paulo middle-class teenager, has a troubled relationship with his father and his mother, Meire. One day, Neto travels with his friend Lobo to Santos without informing his parents. They go to an apartment where they swim and eat food; Neto leaves the place when Lobo suggests that they reciprocate for the food by letting the men there caress them. Alone in downtown, Neto begs for money, and he is helped by a woman called Leninha. She takes him home to have lunch with some friends; after it, Neto and Leninha have sex. Later, at night, he is arrested for doing graffiti, and his parents pick him up at the police station. The following day, Neto is in his bedroom and his father finds a marijuana cigarette in his jacket. Neto's sister advises his parents to send him to a mental institution. Wilson tricks Neto and brings him to a hospital where he is forcibly admitted without any examination to verify its necessity. Neto is sedated by a nurse before receiving the diagnosis of Dr. Cintra. When he wakes up, Neto encounters Ceará, a hyperactive man, and finds out the hospital is decaying and careless. He also meets Rogério, an injectable drug user committed by his family, who tells him it is impossible to escape and that if he were to try he would be drugged with haloperidol. Rogério also tells him not to consume the medications administered by nurses because it awakes the appetite in order to make patients look healthier. Meanwhile, Cintra has a conversation in which he discusses that if necessary he could easily admit more people, mostly homeless, to avoid losing the government subsidy. After some time, Neto's parents and sister visit him, and are deceived by the doctor who says Neto requires months of treatment. Neto begs his parents to take him with them and they refuse. Days later, Neto tries to escape but is captured and receives electroshock treatment. Suddenly, on another day, his father visits him to say he and Meire miss him; Neto asks to leave the place and Wilson takes him away. At home, his mother asks a downcast Neto if he wants to return to school or to work as a salesman; he decides to work. The mother of one of his friends forbids Neto to see him, and he discovers Leninha is a married woman. Then, he becomes distressed to the point of leaving a client in the midst of a sale. To unwind, Neto goes to a party at night, where he mixes Coca-Cola and cachaça. Drunk, he carries his friend Bel to the bathroom and they start to kiss each other. However, he goes berserk and starts to damage the place. The police are called and send him to another psychiatric hospital. In this new institution, Neto angers the nurse Ivan after reporting to the hospital's superior that the nurse overreacted while trying to calm a patient. The nurse has it out for him, and when Ivan sees Neto faking to take a pill, he injects the drug through a syringe. That night, Neto, after doping a nurse, goes to the hospital stockroom and asks the inmate Biu to set fire to a stack of drugs. When Ivan discovers this, Neto receives solitary confinement. After being released from solitary, Neto writes a letter to his father and silently gives it to him when he visits. After refusing to have his hair cut, Neto is locked in solitary once again. He sets fires to the cage and is rescued by the nurses. After reading the letter, Wilson takes him from the clinic. The films ends as Wilson cries while he and Neto are seen seated side-by-side on a curbside. == Cast ==

• Rodrigo Santoro as Neto • Othon Bastos as Mr. Wilson • Cássia Kiss as Meire, Neto's mother • Daniela Nefussi as Neto's sister • Jairo Mattos as Nurse Ivan • Altair Lima as Dr. Cintra Araújo • Caco Ciocler as Rogério • Linneu Dias as Jornalista • Gero Camilo as Ceará == Production ==

Laís Bodanzky read the autobiographical book Canto dos Malditos by for the first time in 1996, when she was signed to assist with the direction of a documentary on the subject. Impressed by its narrative, she asked Luiz Bolognesi to adapt it, as she knew he had a similar worldview and would have the respect necessary to work on the subject. Bolognesi was reluctant as he considered it a complicated subject; he was close to giving up until he read and was touched by Paulo Leminski's presentation of the book. She wanted to show that the end of Brazilian military government was not the end of what she dubbed "concentration camps". Writing The first version of the script was written in June 1997 during a trip for the project Cine Mambembe, which screens Brazilian films around the country in places where the people cannot pay for or do not have access to movie theaters. The trip and the screenings helped Bolognesi to write the screenplay as he "learned that the slightest loss of attention could be mortal and irreversible." Casting and cast preparation '' by Miloš Forman. Sérgio Penna, a theatrical director and a theater guest professor at University of São Paulo, coordinated the cast preparation. His primary aim was to deconstruct the "superficial figure, stereotyped and crystallized by prejudice" image about psychiatric hospitals and the people who live there. The idea was to create another vision that would contain the first, but focus on "more humane and deep aspects." Former psychiatric institution patients from the theatrical groups Pazzo a Pazzo and Teatral Ueinzz, both directed by Penna, appeared as guests. They, however, did not play characters that were interned but supporting characters who remained outside of the hospital. Filming and editing Filming took place in the city of São Paulo between February and April 2000, with a budget of R$1,5 million ($700,000). == Release and reception ==

Accolades and public reception Brainstorm had its premiere in October 2000, when it was selected for and screened at the 2nd Rio Film Festival. Later in the month, it was exhibited at the 24th São Paulo International Film Festival, where it was the only Brazilian film—out of eleven—to be chosen by the public as one of the twelve best films of the festival. It was also the most awarded film at the 33rd Brasília Film Festival, where it won seven awards out of thirteen, and at the 5th Recife Film Festival, where it won nine out of eleven awards. In early 2001, the film was screened in a public square during the Tiradentes Film Festival in Minas Gerais; 11% of the two thousand people in the audience gave the film a rating of "Good," and 89% of them gave it an "Excellent." Brainstorm grossed R$2,184,514 and was watched by 401,565 people in the 50 Brazilian theaters in which it was released. The APCA awarded it Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor (Santoro). Santoro also received a Best Actor Award from the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, and the Social Service of Commerce. In August 2001, Brainstorm was featured at the 54th Locarno International Film Festival, It subsequently won several international awards, including Best Film at the 2001 Biarritz Film Festival, Best First Film at the 2001 Trieste Film Festival, and Best First Film and Best Actor at the 2002 Cartagena Film Festival. It also entered into competition for Best Film at the 2001 Stockholm International Film Festival. Moreover, the film paved the way for new thinking about psychiatric institutions in Brazil which led to a law approved by Congress that forbade such institutions. Critical reception Domestic reception was generally positive. Folha de S.Paulos deemed it "a portrait of hell in motion," "painted with such passion, competence and integrity" which makes it "both a torment and a pleasure." The newspaper commented that all Bodanzky's choices are "unerring", that the documentary tone "amplifies the incisiveness of history" and the natural dialogue, and that "the absence of proselytism facilitates the entry of the viewer in the universe of characters." Ivan Claudio of IstoÉ Gente praised all of the cast including the extras, whose "wandering like zombies in the courtyards of the asylum ... contribute to the realistic climate of the film." He, however, highlighted Santoro, stating that the joint effort of the cast would be meaningless without his performance. Santoro and Camilo, as well as the other patient actors, were praised by Marcelo Forlani of Omelete who said, "It's hard to believe that the actors here are not really crazy." Forlani praised the photography and the sound editing as factors that differentiate it from other films. Furthermore, O Estado de S. Paulo dubbed it "the best Brazilian film since retomada." In 2015, it was recognized by the Brazilian Film Critics Association as the 72nd best Brazilian film of all time on its Top 100. In contrast, international critics were not so favorable. Derek Elley of American magazine Variety said that with "an unattractive palette of cold, blue-green hues, pic does little to build sympathy for its protagonist or any of the other characters, and flashy visual effects for Neto's mental dislocation add to the viewer's own alienation." The Hindus Gautaman Bhaskaran dubbed it "extremely gripping", "disturbing"; ultimately, he declared it has a "morbidity" and a "sense of truth, bitter and brutal". Writing for Indian magazine Outlook, Namrata Joshi praised it as "stylishly shot, alternating between a cinéma vérité view of the Brazilian family life and MTV images of the underground youth culture." Joshi, however, criticized it for its "excessive[ness] in the portrayal of the traumas of Neto which are evoked in the fashion of a radical, nihilistic music video," and the fact he found the reason to intern Neto "never convincingly grounded in the narrative." Similarly, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a Swiss newspaper, criticized it for relying too much on special effects and for not presenting a deeper insight in the emotional conflict. The World Socialist Web Site stated the film has a point in its subject "but the simplistic and outraged tone spoils the film" as "Anyone not already convinced that such institutions are monstrous will legitimately dismiss the work as intemperate propaganda." == Notes and references ==

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