For some artists, dignity is not negotiable.
For others, the control is bearable, OK, we add the dog. There is also a third
group that portrays their own culture with platitudes of a north-american look.
The effort for the colonizer's approval is paid in a closed-door meeting, where
the terms of Mephistopheles are accepted one by one. Minutes later, a gorgeous
filmmaker crosses the waiting room, filled with candidates for the pantheon,
with a smile on his face.
José Padilha has expertise in Mondo Cane. Doesn’t have the literacy of
Paulo Lins, the crudity of Peckimpah, the verve of Loach or the aesthetics of
Tarantino. But intents to transforms violent TV shows in movies. He loves
crimes and heroes, but especially crimes. His heroes are lawyers and policemen
who act as templars of the authoritarian state on a divine mission. They live
on the edge of reason, and this distemper is considered human complexity.
But there is no complexity in Padilha’s world.
His dissatisfaction with “a corrupted system” doesn’t allow he thinks about the
system itself. That is why the apologetic The Mechanism is based on books with titles like the megalomanous “Judge Sérgio Moro and the backstage of the operation that shook Brazil”
(Vladimir Netto) and the forgetable “The fight against corruption: Lava Jato
and the future of a country marked by impunity” (Deltan Dallagnol).
There are few technical defects in José
Padilha's works. The locations and technical staff are fine, but the result is oblivion:
his movies are functional and ideological, in a poor and violent universe of ruthless
drug dealers, powerful businessmen, robotized cops and robot cops with incendiary
and nihilistic speech. Average movies for average guys.
The Mechanism is juts like that. A revenge
against left politicians that makes him more an internet hater than a film maker. His full-of-rage sub-elite manifests follow goebbelian paths that threatens
society and arts in general and amuses a plethora of increasing
fascists groups wich hate poors.
He is a man of his time, knows himself as replaceable and will surf
the conservative wave long as he can, enhancing hate and compromizing his artistic survival with a bunch of lies that makes The Mechanism a big fiasco. Time will tell if his raging manifest will generate
more reflection than entertainment.
