No Glorious Embraces

On Tuesday, 10 November, around 10:30pm, Brazil suffered a nationwide blackout that left about a third of the country’s population shrouded in complete darkness. Entire states were left without any source of electricity, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In most places, chaos reigned as cities came to a complete standstill: people were stuck in traffic, out in the street, on the tube, even in elevators. The overwhelming scale of the blackout meant there was nowhere near enough manpower to deal with the situation. It was several hours before power was restored and things went back to normal. The official government line was that a large hydroelectric dam that supplies a majority of the country was hit by lightning during a heavy storm, causing a disastrous short circuit. If this is actually what happened, I don’t quite understand how there aren’t some security measures that prevent something like this from happening. I’ve heard of blackouts before, but 60 million people? That’s the equivalent of the UK, Ireland, and France all losing power simultaneously. It’s simply ridiculous.

My own personal experience of the blackout was fascinating to say the least. I had been working on a short film documentary in São Paulo and we were filming a scene in a restaurant involving many small interviews. Suddenly, all the lights began to flicker and then quickly went out. Shortly after, a few lights automatically turned on account of the restaurant’s generator. Everyone in the film crew became frustrated at the prospect of the scene being ruined but fortunately enough had been filmed beforehand, so it wasn’t too bad. We packed all our things and jumped into the van, onto our next location, another restaurant in São Paulo’s city centre.

As we drove along the streets, we started to notice all the other buildings in the neighbourhood were dark as well, even the traffic lights were down. We began to suspect it was something bigger than we imagined but the more we drove, the more we realised that this on a completely different scale. Arriving at one of São Paulo’s main avenues, we were met with total gridlock and complete darkness. Someone turned on the radio and we began to hear phone calls from listeners around the country, all mentioning a lack of electricity in their area. It was just unbelievable, I really couldn’t get my head round it: how can so many people lose power at the same time? The thought that we wouldn’t be able to complete the scheduled shots for the day were soon replaced by the fear that we might not even make it to our respective homes. At least we were safe inside the van, a privilege that many did not have. The notion of what those who would take advantage of the blackout would be doing was also unnerving: would there be looting, muggings, widespread violence? In the end, there was very little of the three, there were just a lot of drunk people in the streets, presumably who had been at the bar but saw no way of getting home, and so proceeded to drink more.

Whilst most of the filming wasn’t too affected (the blackout forced the director of photography to improvise some more creative lighting for the remaining interviews in the street) one particular shot was completely compromised. They had set-up a camera at the second bar that would be recording in time-lapse photography, capturing 24 hours there and reducing it to minutes in the editing suite. With a set-up such as this, you normally prepare yourself for most eventualities, such as rain. A blackout is probably never going high in the list. Apart from the odd flash of car headlights or the dim flicker of candles, the camera was recording darkness and nothing else.

In the end everything worked out fine and despite a few setbacks, we managed to get nearly everything we wanted. This, of course, is far from the case of the Brazilian government. Having recently secured the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, I’m not quite sure how either FIFA or the Olympic Committee will view an event like this. For all the promises that Brazil will never suffer another blackout again, faith alone isn’t going to convince these organisations. If Brazil didn’t already have enough on its plates in dealing with the crime, the transport infrastructure, the building of new facilities, and much more, it’s now got to make sure that the country actually has electricity too!

Saturday evening saw the third edition of the Planeta Terra Festival, which translates as the Planet Earth Festival. Rather than an eco-friendly gathering as the name might suggest, Planeta Terra is an indie rock festival that brings together international artists and Brazilian bands across two stages. This year, headliners included Primal Scream, Sonic Youth, and Iggy Pop on the main stage while the Ting Tings, Patrick Wolf, and Metronomy. In a year where many of São Paulo’s older longer-running festivals took a break on account of the crisis, Planeta Terra is one of the few that has managed to hold its ground, surprisingly so considering how young it is.

My evening began with a drizzly start. The festival had started at four in the afternoon and in typical Brazilian fashion, my girlfriend and I didn’t arrive there until about 10pm, which of course meant that we missed every Brazilian band on the lineup (since international acts always get priority) as well as Primal Scream. Ah well, at least we arrived in time for Sonic Youth. As the godfathers of alternative rock walked on stage, the heavens above began to open. Yet many received the rain with open arms after the scorching 35-degree heat of the afternoon. Complete with full-blown distortion, wailing guitars and spoken lyrics, Sonic Youth tore mercilessly through their set, with Thurston Moore very occasionally mumbling a few words. If their energy levels were perhaps not as high as they might’ve been a few years ago, one can forgive them due to the fact they played perfect renditions of their beloved alt rock anthems. I was hoping that they’d play ‘Teen Age Riot’ from their seminal album ‘Daydream Nation’, but alas it was not to be.

As their set closed, the rain finally came to a stop, and so we went to the other stage to see the insufferable Ting Tings (my girlfriend really likes them). The fact that they have such an absurdly stupid name unfortunately doesn’t people enough people off them here in Brazil; on the contrary, they’re actually very popular here. As their set starts, lead singer Katie White comes on holding a piece of a paper with some Portuguese written down and reads it to the crowd, spouting words to the effect of “Hello São Paulo, my Portuguese is shit. Let’s dance!”. Riveting stuff. With only an album under their belt so far, they play it almost in its entirety, missing out slower songs such as ‘Traffic Light’ (I have had to hear the album many times at my girlfriend’s house, wouldn’t you know?). Truth be told, some of the songs weren’t terrible pop songs, if just felt like rehashed formulas. Essentially, it wasn’t as torturous as I thought it would be. Their encore, on the other hand, truly was. Drummer Jules De Martino returned to the stage to a small programmed synthesizer which at the touch of a key, played different songs. Starting with a few opening bars of ‘Walk this Way’, he quickly “mixed” into ‘Rapper’s Delight’ followed by the Ghostbusters’ Theme before moving to his drums. One girl in front of me turned to her friend and said she didn’t know he was a DJ as well. Soon after, White came back on and they launched into ‘Shut Up and Let Me Go’ and ending with their hit ‘That’s Not My Name’. I really can’t think of another artist who has successfully managed to write two more grating songs than those. But they are met with massive applause and leave the stage confident that they have conquered Brazil too now. The thought alone makes me shudder.

Going to a festival with your girlfriend is always a diplomatic operation, even more so when your tastes differ quite so much. Watching the Ting Tings meant we missed Iggy Pop. This is now the second time I’ve missed him at a festival, last time I was in a queue for an hour waiting to collect my ticket since the specific ticket company’s tickets only arrived after the festival was well underway. As we rushed back, we did catch a chorus of ‘The Passenger’ and ‘Lust for Life’. I suppose that’s better than nothing. At least I was sure I wasn’t going to miss the act I was intent on seeing, French electronic artist Etienne de Crecy. Like many of France’s musical exponents of late, Monsieur de Crecy plays electro, sort of an all-encompassing genre nowadays but something along the lines of driving basses, distorted synthesizers, and some harmonic chords thrown in to the mix as well. All this was accompanied by a pretty spectacular light show which involved lines being projected onto a nine-square cube structure with de Crecy in the middle square.

If it wasn’t quite Daft Punk’s Alive show from 2007, it was still thoroughly impressive. As the video above shows, the changes in the music reflected in the light projection were well-chosen; it was a minimalistic concept where the smallest of changes produced large effects and which fitted very well with the flow of de Crecy’s electronica. The only shame was that it started raining again during his show, and since he was the last artist on the main stage, many had decided to forego the performance and head home instead.

It was a fun few hours and it ended spectacularly, but I’m still not convinced that Brazil is the place for music festivals. Unlike in Europe where festivals celebrate a diversity of acts and stages, each one offering something different to the punters, Brazil keeps the scope very limited. It seems that the organisers are more interested in making a profit than putting on a show, and the UK is proof that the more successful festivals are those where the music comes first. Last year, TIM Festival here in São Paulo decided to take the opposite route and took its already paltry number of acts and spread them out across several days whilst charging obscene prices for tickets. It’s not surprising to see that this year, they are “taking a break”. By the looks of it, there’s still some time before Brazil finds its Bestival, let alone its Glastonbury.

So yesterday was the last day of the São Paulo International Film Festival, one of Brazil's most prestigious film festivals. With about 400 films packed into two weeks, there's a film that suits everyone's taste. Last year, I was lucky enough to catch the full two weeks as I had just arrived and had very little on my plate, meaning that I was able to watch many films during the festival. I think I watched something like 7 films, so about 1 every other day. This year, I didn't get to watch a single film! I've been working so much lately that I simply have not had even a few spare hours to while away amongst São Paulo's cinephiles.

I'd been working for the film festival itself since September, working as their English translator for their website and their festival catalogue. I would have thought that working in the festival would've gotten me some perks such as free tickets or some free merchandise, even a badge would've been something. But no, there was none of that. The one thing I did get was two tickets to the opening ceremony, which sounds much glitzier than it proved to be. For starters, there were no drinks or canapés, not even orange juice or water. You had to pay for everything. What kind of festival ceremony doesn't serve free drinks? Sod the film, I came to get drunk amongst the stars, or at least hidrate myself. We were then forced to mill around for about an hour for no apparent reason before the ceremony actually began, which took another hour in itself: rather than a simple introduction and some thank yous to the sponsors, a representative from each sponsor came up and gave a "short" speech. The groans in the audience became more audible with every sponsor that appeared onstage; when they called the sports minister on to talk about something or other, it sounded like there was a chorus of school-kids moaning. Eventually, two hours after the film should've started, the festival directors left the stage and the projectors were turned on. Up pops Ken Loach's ode to that French rapscallion Cantona, 'Looking for Eric'. It was a great choice to start off the festival, a mix of action, comedy, and tragedy, much like a football match. I only was a little irritated since I'd seen the film a few weeks before on the plane, on a screen the size of my palm, thus the surprise factor was little ruined. I guess I have to correct myself then, rather not seeing a single film, I didn't see a single film I hadn't seen before. But enough of that, onto the Two Erics.

Eric Bishop (Steve Everts) is a postman in Manchester whose life is in crisis. He can't control his two sons, he can't face his first wife, the mother of his daughter, and he can't deliver his mail. Lost in the world and with no one to turn to, who looks to his idol for guidance, Eric Cantona, "the best football player that ever lived". One night, as he looks at a life-size poster of Cantona, he is visited by the man himself to receive advice on how to get his life back on track.

Despite being produced by the French footballer himself, 'Looking for Eric' is not simply a film about football. In fact, it's far from a film about Cantona. The eponymous Eric is the English Eric, not the French one. It is his story we follow, the story of a working man trying straighten things out in his life. The focus is always on Eric's development throughout the film, and though the subplots may sometimes seem in parallel to his story, their purpose is simply to be another challenge for Eric; we are not interested in whether or not the issues get resolved as much as we are in interested in how Eric will deal with them, which is where football comes in. Whilst football is often mentioned throughout the film, from Eric's recounting of Cantona's best goals (including footage of them) to the arguments over team loyalties, it's never the centrepiece of the film. It only serves as a metaphor for the things lacking in his life: solidarity, support, confidence, unity. And it is football that eventually helps him resolve his issues, represented by his friends and Cantona.

Loach finds a balance between the different aspects of the story and styles of the film, such as the British social realism of working-class people versus the more fantastic elements of the film, or the lighter tone of scenes involving Eric's friends compared to the darker, gritter mood given to Ryan's subplot. The film never seems to jump around from these quite contrasting elements, with Paul Laverty's script keeping them flowing smoothly scene by scene. Unlike past films, Loach's comic touch perhaps adds a more approachable quality to the film, making it so satisfying to watch, especially its exuberant ending.

The actors all deliver great performances, each one suiting his or her role in the story: Gerard Kearns as Eric's rebellious teenage son who reveals himself to be a child in need of a parent; Stephanie Bishop's Lily balances the conflict in the film with her soothing nature, sharing some touching moments with Steve Everts; John Henshaw and Justin Moorhouse provide some brilliant comic relief as Meatballs and Spleen respectively (the scene where the postmen are gathered at Eric's house trying out a self-help exercise is hysterical). Even with all this support, Everts still has a lot to live up to as the film's protagonist, and yet he shines as Eric, the explosive, insecure, loving parent/postman. And of course, last but not least, Eric Cantona, who plays none other than lui-même.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the film is that depsite not being focused on football, it conveys a strong sense of the passion of a football fan. The goals one never forgets, the feeling of camradarie with other fans, the notion that a football match is the only place where one can let loose and forget all inhibitions, no matter who you are or what you do, and the security that notion offers. These ideas only appear in the film explicitly once, but one can feel they are floating around throughout the film. It is these ideas that Eric years to retrieve, it's what he needs to retrieve to find the Eric he is looking for. As a famous French philosopher once said:

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea".