QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE

Marcielle (Jamilii Correa) is aged just 13. She lives in a riverside community of Marajo, the world’s largest fluvial island (where the Brazilian Amazon meets the Atlantic Ocean). She boasts prominent indigenous features, including large cheekbones, fleshy lips, olive skin and a curvaceous body. She resides with her parents Marcilio (Romulo Braga) and Danielle (Fatima Macedo), her two brothers and her younger sister Carol. Marcielle (affectionately nicknamed “Tielle”) is very close to both mum and dad. In fact, her name is a portmanteau of theirs (not an uncommon practice in Brazil). On the surface, the family enjoys a peaceful existence. Yet the knowledge that their eldest daughter Claudia ran away haunts them, suggesting that there are dirty things on heaven and earth.

Marcilio is ultra-protective of Tielle. He is very concerned that she may board a commercial barge (a hotspot for child prostitution), and become a “boat girl”. His preference is to keep Tielle to himself. The devoted father takes his daughter on very intimate hunting trips inside the dense rainforest. Fatima sees her husband as a hard-working and virtuous man, a breadwinner who rescued her from poverty. She is not particularly concerned about the real nature of his relationship to her daughter. Her biggest concern is that Tielle could run away or be taken from them.

One day, a very curious Tielle makes it to the forbidden barge. She sees other indigenous girls of around her age, and men from many parts of Brazil. She meets an older Brazilian called Faguinho, about two to three times her age, and becomes infatuated. These males are mostly white, and they flatter their clients with petty money and objects of little value (such as an old mobile phone). They perpetuate the colonial tradition of sexualising and commercialising indigenous people. A tradition that’s 524 years old. Portuguese scribe Pero Vaz de Caminha wrote the Royal Court in the first ever piece of correspondence crafted on Brazilian soil, in the year of 1500 (when Brazil was “discovered”:): “they [the indigenous people] will trade their body in exchange for any old trinket”.

Indeed, Marcielle treats her body like a merchandise. She has no grasp of privacy and consent. Her ingenuousness is guaranteed to shock European viewers. The word “sex” is never uttered, being conveniently replaced by “that thing between us”. Marcielle barely knows a word for her breasts, and she calls her genitalia “paca” (a large tropical rodent). The lack of education is intentional. Those with no knowledge over their own body and their rights are more likely to be abused without consequences. Yet Marcielle is barely aware of her oppression. At times, she looks perfectly satisfied with her predicament. Could that change?

These are people living at the margins of society, in the literal and also in the figurative sense. Not only they inhabit the riverside, but also they have been mostly forgotten by the government. Tielli is illiterate. In fact, she doesn’t even possess an identity card. She is borderline invisible. Paradoxically, it is someone working for the establishment (a kind police officer called Aretha, played by Dira Paes) the first one to lend a little hand. It remains to be seen whether Tielle can and wants to be rescued.

Pierre de Kerchove’s lush cinematography of the Amazon includes exuberant images of the modest, partly stilted riverside dwelling, as well takes inside the river, with its naturally muddy waters. This impressive debut is based on real-life reports, and dedicated to “all women who are victims of abuse. The project is supported by Brazilian grandee Walter Salles (who just premiered his own film I’m Still Here in the Festival’s Official Competition), and the Dardenne Brothers.

Manas premiered in the Venice Days section of the 81st Venice International Film Festival, and it won the strand’s main prize, the Director’s Award.