/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/ TV-BRAZIL: Ambitious Soap Opera Recounts Italian Immigration

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 5 1999 (IPS) - A television series that retells the history of Brazil’s Italian immigrants is the weapon that Red Globo, the nation’s largest television network, wields in an attempt to recover its diminishing soap opera audiences.

It is no accident that the first episodes of “Terra Nostra,” which premiered in mid-September, take place on an enormous ship, reminiscent of “Titanic,” the U.S. film that took over the world’s box offices, and in Brazil attracted 12 million movie- goers.

The beginning of the story, which like “Titanic” centres on two young people who fall in love during an ocean journey, was filmed in Britain. The production required more than 300 extras to represent the multitude of Italians that, in 1896, embarked on the trip to Brazil in search of a better life.

These first maritime scenes cost approximately 600,000 dollars, according to various sources, 10 times the estimated average cost of each one of the soap’s 200 planned episodes. The entire series is budgeted at 10 million dollars.

The series will show three periods of Italian immigrants in Brazil, ending with the current era, and will use the continuity of the characters’ stories, says script-writer Benedito Ruy Barbosa.

The soap opera covers a 100-year panorama of the evolution of Sao Paulo state, where immigrants communities have tended to concentrate since they began arriving at the end of the last century.

Ruy Barbosa has experience with the immigration theme. Two of his previous series also portrayed the lives of Italians in Brazil, and one of the first shows he wrote, for the rival Bandeirantes network, was aptly called “Los inmigrantes” (The Immigrants).

Director Jayme Monjardim indicated that for him, “Terra Nostra” is almost biographical. He is a descendent of the Matarazzo family, a symbol of the success of Italian immigrants as the clan is linked to the origins of Sao Paulo’s industrialisation.

The series begins in 1896, eight years after slavery was abolished in Brazil. It was the era of Sao Paulo state’s coffee boom and the plantations urgently needed a workforce to replace their African-origin slaves – and Italians seemed the best solution.

Thousands began the journey from Italy, under the hazardous travel conditions of the time. Most had already been promised jobs by the large Brazilian coffee companies.

A plague outbreak nearly kills the soap opera’s protagonists, Mateo and Giuliana, on the ship where they meet and fall in love. Giuliana’s parents die from the epidemic and are buried at sea.

The two lovers lose each other in the crowd when they disembark at the port of Santos, 70 km from Sao Paulo. They each confront innumerable obstacles before they finally meet again, in accordance with what has become the traditional and immutable narrative structure of Brazilian soaps.

Mateo is subjected to near-slave labour at the coffee plantation, while Giuliana, already pregnant, is welcomed into the home of a friend of her father’s, an immigrant from a previous generation who is wealthy thanks to marrying well.

In the story, Mateo is unjustly accused of having taken the virginity of the plantation owner’s daughter. The father, a former slave owner, threatens to kill Mateo if he does not marry the daughter, saying he must “cleanse the family’s honour.” ANd then he makes Mateo the heir to all his property.

The romance between the young immigrants is what captures the viewer’s attention, but the background in this first part is a history lesson in the rural life of coffee plantations 100 years ago. The relationship between the plantation’s owner and the workers still resembles work relations of the slave era.

Italian immigration is an issue that serves Red Globo well in its fight to keep its audiences, which are spread throughout the world as a result of the global export of Brazilian series.

“Suave veneno” (Smooth Venom), a soap opera broadcast during an early evening time slot, captured a 30 to 45 percent viewership. This, incredibly, was one of Red Globo’s worst rates for this “star hour,” which brings in the highest advertising profits.

With “Terra Nostra,” the television network hopes to recover past audience levels for the day’s major soap opera – higher than 50 percent.

The first episodes of the series reached the goal. The challenge now is to maintain high ratings for more than 35 weeks.