Caetano Veloso - 54 days during the dictatorship

Narciso em Ferias (Narcissus Off-duty) is Caetano Veloso's personal testimony of his arrest and imprisonment in 1968 during the dictatorship in Brazil. Premiering at the Venice Biennale and shown at Doclisboa, the film follows closely the account given by the famous Brazilian singer in his 1997 book Verdade Tropical (Tropical Truth}. Filmed in minimalist style, with Caetano sitting on a chair in an empty room, speaking with almost no interventions. Without direct mention of Bolsonaro, he alludes to today's fake news to attack regime opponents, the attacks against cultural institutions (the recent visit by armed police to the Cinemateca Brasileira to seize its keys) as well as, of course, state brutality. Graham Douglas talks to the directors Renato Terra and Roberto Calil about their intentions in making the film at this current time.

For a European audience, mention of the dictatorships that happened in Latin America in the 1970s conjures up stories of terror and torture. In this film however, this backdrop remains mostly unexplored. Neither Caetano Veloso nor Gilberto Gil, two of Brazil's most famous musicians, who were arrested at the same time, were physically tortured. Instead, the film aims, in the directors' words to show 'what the experience of prison was for this great artist'. Most of the time in the film, however, Veloso seems self-absorbed, as if Narcissus is actually not 'off-duty' at all, and in the book, Caetano jokes that it could seem like Marcel Proust telling the story of his imprisonment!

The movie, instead, focuses on the feelings of a sensitive artist, from an admittedly comfortable background as he tries to make sense of - and also to avoid - the shock of being imprisoned. While few others are present in his telling, the political issues certainly are, with allusions to Brazil's current political and social reality, the continuation of racial and social discrimination.

The Brazilian dictatorship began1964.It was the first in a wave of military governments that plagued Latin America in the 70s and 80s, arguably much more brutal than the Brazilian, which was already meeting serious resistance both in the street and in Parliament from March 1968, when the March of the100,000 took place in Rio. The response was the notorious Institutional Act5 (Al- 5), on Dec.13th, cancelling normal democratic rights and allowing arbitrary arrest. Caetano and Gilberto Gil were arrested two weeks later.

This interview can be read in full with links and photos on the LatinoLife website where it was first published, here:

https://www.latinolife.co.uk/articles/caetano-veloso-54-days-during-dictatorship