BRAZIL: Soap opera "Vidas Opostas" (Opposite Lives) which depicts the horrifying violence engulfing Brazil is top of the ratings

Record ID: 602419

  • Title: BRAZIL: Soap opera "Vidas Opostas" (Opposite Lives) which depicts the horrifying violence engulfing Brazil is top of the ratings
  • Date: 19th April 2007
  • Summary: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DIRECTOR OF "OPPOSITE LIVES" ALEXANDRE AVANCINI (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) DIRECTOR OF "OPPOSITE LIVES" ALEXANDRE AVANCINI SAYING: "Our intention was not to make a violent soap opera, but to discuss our reality, our day-to-day life. Marcilio's (scriptwriter Marcilio Moraes) proposal was to do an X-ray of what happens in B
  • Embargoed: 4th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Brazil
  • Country: Brazil
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVABA64OGTQ2VJQYAHTO51V2MPT
  • Story Text: Brazil's hugely popular television soap operas usually deal with tear-filled romance. But the horrifying violence engulfing the country has upstaged the melodrama and taken one "telenovela" to the top of the ratings.
    "Vidas Opostas" (Opposite Lives) is a hit with residents of Rio de Janeiro, where it is set, and around the country, despite complaints that people are weary of the real-life bloodshed and gory newscasts.
    Lony Lima, who lives in what used to be the calm neighbourhood of Vila Isabel in Rio, watches "Vidas Oppostas" every night, but it is no fiction to her. In the past fifteen years she saw the violent Macaco slum grow rapidly from her window and today, lives the nightmare she watches on TV.
    Lima said the soap opera shows reality.
    "It's reality and this reality crossed my window," she said.
    In March a bullet fired through Lima's window while she cleaned the house, the fifth in less than two years.
    Director of "Vidas Opostas" Alexandre Avancini, said the broadcaster's intention is to discuss violence by showing an "X-ray" of Brazilian reality.
    "Our intention was not to make a violent soap opera, but to discuss our reality, our day-to-day life. Marcilio's (scriptwriter Marcilio Moraes) proposal was to do an X-ray of what happens in Brazil today, which unfortunately is very violent," he said.
    The prime-time telenovela on the Rede Record network, shot partly in a real slum, has beat leading network Globo in the ratings several times when pitted against big league soccer games -- an undeniable sign of popularity in Brazil.
    The director said feedback from the audience showed an overwhelming majority of viewers liked the idea of having a realistic picture of Rio's life.
    Avancini believes the Brazilian public is ready to watch their own reality and recognize the country's wounds.
    In another, a rival gang invades a slum in a convoy of cars, their machine guns and rifles spitting fire in all directions, making slum-dwellers drop to the floors of their shacks. In a police raid that follows, an officer shoots an innocent man and plants a gun in his dead hand.
    "They (viewers) are people who work, people who are engaged in the society's changing process and do want to see the reality, they want to see themselves being portrayed and the country's wounds being exposed, pulling a line of discussion," he said.
    A love story is not missing. "Vidas Opostas" is the story of a young millionaire heir who loves a girl who lives in a slum, or favela. The favela is controlled by a drug gang that is in the middle of a turf war with a rival group, which has the backing of a corrupt cop, a typical scenario in many of Rio's 600-plus shantytowns.
    A sociologist and violence specialist, Ignacio Cano, said it is healthier for Brazilians to watch their own violence and reflect upon it, than seeing a Hollywood movie.
    "Instead of watching violence in the streets of Los Angeles, all this recreation of foreign violence, it's much better for us to see our own violence and reflect upon it," he said.
    Many scenes are borrowed from daily life, like a shootout in a tunnel full of cars, with panicked drivers abandoning their cars and running for cover.
    In an attempt to match its rival's success, Globo borrowed a shocking scene from real life for its own soap opera, in which a character is killed in a bus torched by a gang.
    It is based on homicides that occurred in December during a wave of gang attacks. Nine passengers were burnt to death.
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