Charcoal People

Rating:
Summary: Workers of the rain forest
Review: Set to the backdrop of the rainforest in the Amazon, Charcoal People is a documentary about the people who work hard to create charcoal. This movie hits you like a brick; this is not a sexy melodrama about middle class lovers romping in Rio, it is a hard hitting statement about the living and working conditions of workers destined to hardship. The workers are similar to coal mine workers in the United States. The natural beauty is juxtaposed with the laborious human condition, highlighted by a narrative and interviews with the various workers. You will meet a man in his seventies with the sinewy body of a young athelete, lifting heavy pieces of lumber, recently felled and now being placed into a kiln. Attention is given also to the kiln makers who travel the wastelands of the depleted rain forest. The kiln makers live a nomadic existence, hiring out to the highest bidder, making beautiful hut shaped ovens ready for the wood to burn and turn into charcoal. The kiln makers, the people who cut and load the wood are basically indenturesd servants whose families before them worked the forest and their future generations will probably continue the family tradition out of necessity. It is a bleak outlook for the youngsters. One compelling moment has a father talking about how he wants his son to break the cycle through education(most cannot write their own names) and when the happy son is interviewed and asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he answers that he wants to work the kilns. In spite of the best intentions it seems the cycle will continue. Other touching moments are when the workers finish sawing down a 100 year old tree they look dismayed and confirm their disgust by saying it took only five minutes to chop down what took 100 years to grow. In spite of their being upset they go about the task at hand and proceed to cut and make pieces for the kiln to satisfy the insatiable desire for more charcoal. The movie can be disheartening at times but the redeeming qualities of the people, their humble attitudes, their respect for life and the emphasis on being a polite person buries their plight. If you like documentaries than this movie about the workers of the rain forest is a must. A great movie for environmentalists, teachers, activists or any organization involved in showing what is going on in the rain forest.

Rating:
Summary: interesting, but lacking...
Review: this documentary film reminded me a bit of that film about the poor children in peru who live by rummaging through the garbage dumps trying to find items they can sell or recycle in exchange for money... it is another film about society's dispossessed millions who live in filth, squalor and poverty with no hope of finding a way out in this generation and little in generations to come... as with any film of this sort, you feel a mixture of sadness for the people's plight, desperation at the fact that their situation will probably never change and pleasant surprise about how articulate the people are when describing their lives and the world around them... in this emotional sense, the film is a success and provides an adequate description of the life of brazil's charcoal workers...

perhaps what was missing for me was a piece of the bigger picture... the film seems to attempt a presentation without ideology... we never see who is benefiting from the work of these obviously exploited, unprotected workers... having been to brazil and read much about the landless, miners and agricultural workers, this film presents just a small part of a big picture that you are left asking yourself about... you never see how the lives of these people fit into the bigger picture of brazil as a whole, though you can at least imagine that there are many more like them in this country and dozens of others