/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/FILM-BRAZIL: Psychiatric Dungeons a Persistent Reality

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 29 2001 (IPS) - A film that reveals the truth behind psychiatric hospitalisation in Brazil has turned into a powerful weapon for the movement working to abolish the supposed mental health centres which they say are truly dungeons.

‘Bicho de sete cabeças’ (Seven-Headed Creature) is the story of Neto, a normal middle-class adolescent who lives a relatively simple life in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area. His teenage rebelliousness is limited to painting graffiti and occasionally smoking marijuana with his group of friends.

The typical run-ins with his traditional and moralist father are aggravated when he is arrested for vandalising a building. Their already difficult communication becomes even more tenuous.

The discovery of a marijuana cigarette among his son’s things leads the father, horrified by the teenager’s attitudes, to turn him over to a psychiatric centre. To do so, he fools his son, telling him they are going to visit a friend in the hospital.

Thus begins the saga of Neto, effectively transformed into a “madman” through saturation with medications, electroshocks, isolation and other punishments for a failed escape he attempts at a point when it is already difficult for him to control his physical movements.

The apathy of the son, nearly unable to speak – even to ask to be removed from this hell – proves moving to the father on one visit. But it is impossible to return to a normal life. The psychological scars and humiliation suffered as one who was “mentally ill” leads Neto to react violently – and put him back in the institution.

A dramatic letter in which he blames his father for his suffering, followed by a suicide attempt – setting his cell ablaze – win him freedom once again, and the uncertain possibility of recovery. His father, in the end, realises the grave error he has made.

‘Bicho de sete cabeças’ is to premiere in commercial theatres throughout Brazil on Jun. 22, and its box-office success seems assured because it reveals a world that is largely unknown to the public and because it takes on the sticky question of parent- adolescent relationships.

At least that appeared to be the indication of the resounding applause heard at the film’s pre-release showing in mid-May at the Film and Video Festival of Curitiba, in southern Brazil.

Neto’s story is based on the real-life experiences of Austregésilo Carrano in the 1970s, recounted in his book ‘O Canto dos Malditos’ (Den of the Damned).

Carrano is now part of the movement to abolish psychiatric hospitals and uses the film to disseminate his ideas, proposing that those who suffer from mental disorders should be provided with outpatient and alternative treatments, such as occupational therapy.

The former internee asserts that psychiatric patients should remain with their families and in contact with society.

‘Bicho de sete cabeças’ is also the result of investigations of psychiatric hospitals and reflects reality, approaching documentary-like language, said the film’s director, Laís Bodansky, in her presentation during a panel discussion at the Curitiba Festival.

Her film won applause in special showings for psychiatrists and for the Ministry of Health. The work surprised many, especially the younger psychiatry students, Bodansky told IPS, because “they didn’t even begin to guess that this tragedy existed”.

‘Bicho de sete cabeças’ tells Carrano’s story but in an updated version, bringing it in line with Brazil’s current culture, and with the added variable of communications difficulties between generations, the filmmaker explains.

Approximately 70,000 people live in psychiatric institutions in Brazil, under inhumane conditions and suffering abuse, she says, despite a law that took force in April outlining a total reform of psychiatric treatments in order to put an end to “the industry of madness”.

This area of medicine, with its never-ending internment, is a locus for fraud and illicit diversion of public funds, according the Health Minister José Serra.

Preparing the actors for their film roles – to accurately reproduce the psychological environment of the institution – was an important part of the film’s creation, and involved the expertise of Sergio Penna, a respected theatre director here.

“We wanted to avoid recreating stereotypes, or caricatures of insanity,” Bodansky pointed out.

Rodrigo Santoro, who plays the film’s leading role and is known for his soap opera roles on the Red Globo TV network, visited several psychiatric centres where patients are hospitalised for at least two years.

“It was the most challenging role I have faced,” stated Santoro, who won the best actor award at the Brasilia Film Festival, the most important such event for the Brazilian movie industry.

Making the film turned its director and actors into new activists in favour of closing down the country’s psychiatric hospitals.

Bodansky admits that she was shocked when she read Carrano’s book more than three years ago. The filmmaker also realised that she had prejudices, and said the book was a horrifying discovery for her, given the distorted information that the public is fed about the matter.

The decision to make the film was automatic, said the director, especially because it is about “an invisible reality that unfortunately persists”, with continued incidents at these institutions that are as terrible as those shown in the film.