Scripta 9_2_link_final.pdf - Uniandrade

In one of the takes that follows, still in the opening of the film, the
camera goes through a wall covered by graffiti, where one reads: “Art is
what the world will turn itself into. Not what the world is now.” Here,
interpretation and creativity get intertwined in the expression ‘turn into’,
leading the audience back to the re-signifying of the 16th century play, and
to the future possibility of social transformation through the arts. In fact,
despite the shocking scenes of violence, the film gradually builds up in the
spectator the hope for the triumph of an energetic dancing youth over the
rule of crime. Art is clearly the antidote for determinism, and the hope for
better days is often also built through dialogues and statements. When
Analídia, the new Juliet Capulet, refuses to visit her father in jail, she says:
“I’ve got no obligation to visit an outlaw in jail”. She also refuses marrying
her father’s second man in traffic dealings – the metamorphosed Paris – by
saying: “I don’t want to marry a criminal. I am not marrying a criminal” –
statements which relate to Juliet’s break as concerns paternal authority in
Shakespeare’s 16th century play Romeo and Juliet.
The prohibition of a woman to act on the Elizabethan stages has
to do with Analídia, whose integrity, determination, and female dignity are
expressed by her vigorous dance movements on the narrow alleys of Maré,
where young men pass by casually holding rifles and pistols. Here, the
Renaissance paternal authority is shifted to the law imposed by the Red and
the Blue factions of drug trafficking which fight for the control of the
actions in the area, defining what is acceptable and what is prohibited.
Romeo Montecchio is shifted to Jonathan, the community MC,
whose dream is to have his CD released. Divided between his two older
brothers – Paulo, a peaceful and idealist worker, who enjoys singing samba
songs with his friends in his spare time, and Dudu, the adopted brother,
leader of the Blue faction that also fights for the drug traffic control in the
slums – Jonathan lives the dilemma of accepting or not the help of his
transgressing brother who promises to financially support his career with
money earned from drug dealing.
Thus, the migration of signs and canonical resources, reconfigured
into the mass culture in Maré, nossa história de amor, brings the themes of
Romeo and Juliet closer to the spectator, supplementing and revitalizing the
canonical work of art, by presenting to the audience a universe which is
much closer to their own issues, allowing the public to seek “in the walls of
their confinement […] their mental images of the world” (SANTIAGO,
2004, p.125). Those, who have traditionally been excluded from the live
Scripta Uniandrade, v. 9, n. 2, jul.-dez. 2011 117