/ARTS WEEKLY/TELEVISION-BRAZIL: Immigration Star of New Series ‘for Export’

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 20 2002 (IPS) - The TV Globo network has once again confirmed why it is known as the Hollywood of Brazil with the soap opera “Esperanza”, repeating the established formulas for the genre, but still far ahead of the tear-jerkers of the past.

To create “Esperanza” (Hope), two major talents joined forces. Scriptwriter Benedito Ruy Barbosa and director Luiz Fernando Carvalho know how to win an audience and ensure that the television product is exported. They are the minds behind past teleseries that were hugely successful in Latin America and in some European countries.

Ruy Barbosa remains an equal to the standards and styles that some playwrights, like Dias Gomes, contributed to the Brazilian soap opera, going beyond the “sugary sweet” approach that gave rise to this type of entertainment on radio and television alike.

Meanwhile, director Carvalho has unique aesthetic ambitions that have enabled him to reach the big screen, with films like “Lavoura arcaica”, considered a work of art and winning numerous international awards last year.

The images Carvalho achieves even on the small screen are of cinematographic quality, say entertainment experts.

“Esperanza”, which began broadcasts last month, returns to the theme of Italian immigration, the focus of previous Ruy Barbosa series. Comedians at TV Globo have even nicknamed the soap opera “Semejanza” (Similarity), as a criticism of they see as the writer’s repeat of “Terra Nostra”, produced two years ago.

Ruy Barbosa defends himself with the argument that the arrival of Italians in Brazil was of great historic importance, and that this new series also portrays Spanish, Portuguese and Jewish immigrants.

However, given the experience of recent TV Globo soap operas, the selection of the theme is also part of a strategy aimed at exporting the television product.

“Terra Nostra” is already in the re-run phase in Italy, where it is naturally popular given that country’s interest in stories about the fate of its compatriot émigrés.

A study on the international scope of Brazilian soap operas, conducted by Maria Immacolatta de Lopes, of the University of Sao Paulo, indicates that the export strategy entails adapting the material to each particular market.

Furthermore, the version targeting the European audiences is cut down because they are less likely to have the patience for the 200 original episodes seen in Brazil, and the background music is usually modified, says Lopes.

“O Clon” (The Clone), the network’s previous teleseries, which ended in June, marked the greatest success of that strategy to date, as it mixed controversial topics, like human cloning, with religious clashes.

“The Clone” highlighted Muslim beliefs, thus receiving an unexpected boost, as a result of the Sep 11 attacks in the United States, largely attributed to Islamic extremists.

“Esperanza”, like Ruy Barbosa’s previous works, reconstructs a dramatic period of Brazilian history and local reality. The story begins this time in Civita de Bagnoreggio, in northern Italy, in 1931, when the effects of the 1929 economic crisis were being felt around the world.

The drama develops in three primary locations: among immigrants of different origins in Sao Paulo, in the rural areas of Sao Paulo state where some Italian families settled, and in Italy, where many of their relatives remained.

The disputes over land, an issue that resurfaces in all of Ruy Barbosa’s works as a Brazilian tragedy that exists today in the struggle for land reform, pits small Italian landowners against Lucia Veríssimo, a bitter widow with large landholdings who seeks to expand her properties, and has been dubbed by locals “Iron Hand”.

In Italy, the conflict is between Giuliano, a fascist supporter on the rise, played by the famous Antonio Fagundes, and a democratic pianist named Genaro, played by theatre star Raúl Cortez.

It is the era in which Sao Paulo begins to industrialise and to experience clashes between workers and employers, with the labour union influence of Italian and Spanish anarchist immigrants.

Some episodes also recall the military battles that occurred in 1932, when Sao Paulo workers unsuccessfully rebelled against the dictatorship of Getulio Vargas in defence of the Brazilian Constitution.

Amid these dramatised historic events, several other story lines evolve, aimed at the audience’s emotions, a la Romeo and Juliet.

Toni, played by actor/model Reinaldo Gianecchini, leaves his girlfriend María (Priscila Fantim) behind in Italy, not knowing that she is pregnant due to barriers that stand in the way of communication between the two.

Toni ends up marrying a Jewish woman, in spite of the family’s resistance, and converts to Judaism. But María refuses to forget him and continues to look for her beloved, though her fascist father forces her to marry a wealthy older man.

Meanwhile, Iron Hand’s son and daughter fall in love with young Italians, belonging to the “enemy” camp, sparking personal and family dramas in rural Sao Paulo.

Adding to the mix is the case of a young student who falls for a French prostitute. In pursuing his love, he runs up against the opposition of his father and the prejudices of the era.

“Esperanza” is a soap opera that is thickly layered, combining overly dramatic romance, historic saga, conflicts of the Brazilian reality and strong characters. A product “for export”.