In There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson traced the obsessive focus on oil exploitation and profits; in Dry Ground Burning (Mato seco em chamas), a Brazilian documentary hovering on the cusp of drama, we know there will be fire, a cleansing, destructive fire that consumes the lives of the tough, rough women gasolineiras at the center of the story. Gas is stolen from oil pipes below the ground; booze is sold at a nightclub; guns are smuggled; prisoners bribe guards to escape from jail. Depicting the harsh lives of female ex-cons who steal from underground oil pipes and resell the gasoline for a profit, the film certainly risks glamorizing criminality as it stirs our sympathy for these women, who struggle to raise their kids and survive in an underground economy generated by Brazil’s pervasive “savage capitalism”.
Brazil’s favelas (shanty towns) have been at the center of some memorable movies, from Black Orpheus to City of God. Here the action takes place in Sol Nascente, a sprawling assortment of dusty roads and precarious constructions that claims to be the largest favela on the continent, located just outside Brasilia, the gleaming architectural wonder designed by Oscar Niemeyer.
The film’s directors and screenwriters are Portuguese Joana Pimenta, who teaches Ethnography at Harvard, and Brazilian Adirley Queirós, whose prior films include his award-winning White Out, Black in (Branco sei, Preto fica), and a documentary feature that premiered at Locarno, Once There was Brasilia (Era uma vez Brasilia). In Dry Ground Burning, the writer-directors have created a Western-type plot focused on an all-female team of former convicts. These gasolineiras, who sport tight shorts and tattoos, extract crude oil through rudimentary machines, then refine and sell the gasoline to a small army of helmeted cowboys known as moto boys, who distribute it throughout the favela on their roaring motorbikes. The women bargain and settle on the price and percentages charged through this micro-distribution method. Suspense is built as police roam the streets in a heavily fortified vehicle, using drones to monitor the back alleys of the giant shanty town. Far from the cavalry coming to the rescue, the police are shown as frightened men trapped inside their own bullet-proof tank.
Chitara (Joana Darc), the gang leader, has a nose for entrepreneurial success. Long-haired Léa (Léa Alves), her half-sister, is in charge of security and enforcement. She acts for the camera, looking fiercely into the night sky, pointing her rifle in various directions while smoking a cigarette, and we will watch her smoke many more during the film’s remaining two hours. In other, more intimate scenes, the sisters fondly reminisce about their father, expressing admiration for his ability to impregnate and abandon several women over his lifetime.
The film is excessively long, with an almost anthropological interest in the protags’ daily routines. They work hard and then relax by staging wild parties: in a prolonged scene inside a bus, they grind, kiss, and dance to rap music. At a later point, they sit in neat rows in a bus taking them to prison, while three guards keep an eye on them. In yet another sedate sequence, one of the gasolineiras prays in an Evangelical church, her tears flowing, while the congregation sings hymns praising Jesus.
Chitara has formed a political party, the PPP, or Prison People’s Power. She campaigns from a truck, singing a rap song and promising to build a clinic and a college in the neighborhood. We also see supporters of presidential law-and-order candidate Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain who is now Brazil’s Trump-like president.
Joana Pimenta’s splendid cinematography portrays a range of ochre tones, from the reddish soil that turns to dust as the motorcycles rumble along unpaved roads, to the rusty equipment that extracts the black petroleum from the ground. Night shooting is skillfully handled in a chiaroscuro technique where faces are lit by the burning gas, flares that light up the sky, or the inevitable cigarettes.
Sound plays an important role in the narrative, as we follow the police surveillance over crackling radios, or hear the fireworks explode in the silent night, announcing another batch of gasoline is available for sale. Voice-overs fill out the characters’ backgrounds. Léa laments the death of her daughter’s father, also a convict. She then brushes aside any nostalgia and brags about her sexual exploits inside the women’s prison. The soundtrack uses several rap songs to comment on the action. In the final minutes, the lyrics compare growing up in the Sol Nascente favela to the Wild West, with plenty of dust, as well as violent “bang-bang” in the air.
Directors, screenplay: Adirley Queirós, Joana Pimenta
Cast: Joana Darc, Léa Alves, Andreia Vieira, Débora Alencar, Gleide Firmino
Producer: Adirley Queirós
Cinematography: Joana Pimenta
Production design: Douglas Queirós
Editing: Cristina Amaral
Music: Muleka 100 Calcinha
Sound: Francisco Craesmeyer, Vitor Brandão
Production companies: Cinco da Norte (Brasil), Terratreme (Portugal)
World sales: Vitrine Filmes
Venue: Berlin International Film Festival (Forum)
In Portuguese
153 minutes
