Monday, January 26, 1998
Long Journey Home
FILM For Brazilian director Bruno Barreto, ‘Four Days in
September’ meant
nearly a decade of painstaking work
By Stephanie Sheh
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The year was 1969. And five young, inexperienced revolutionaries
decided to make the Brazilian government listen. Their strategy?
Kidnap the American ambassador.
"Four Days in September," which opens in New York and Los
Angeles on Friday, tells the true story of this short but heated
standoff. For Brazilian director Bruno Barreto though, getting the
film made was quite a departure from four short days.
Barreto spent nearly a decade making this film. But unlike other
films, "Four Day’s" lengthy production time was not spent trying to
raise money. Barreto went through six different screenwriters
before perfecting the script.
"I didn’t want to make another political thriller," Barreto says
energetically, making large circles with his hands in the air. " I
wanted to go a little beyond that. Actually, I wanted to make a
film that wasn’t about politics. I wanted to make a film about the
people in it. Politics would just be the background of it."
Although "Four Days" is a foreign film, it features a number of
English-speaking characters, including Charles Elbrick, the
targeted American ambassador. Actor Alan Arkin, who plays Elbrick,
shares Barreto’s attitude about the politics behind the film.
"The political aspect of the film doesn’t interest me," Arkin
insists with a gruff voice. "What interests me about the film is
that at the surface level it is a political thriller, but you end
up caring about everybody in the movie."
The inspiration behind the emotional story that Arkin and
Barreto mention is Fernando Gabeira’s bestseller "O que isso,
companheiro?" which tells of Gabeira’s experiences as one of the
kidnappers.
"The book didn’t have anything about the ambassador," says the
bearded Barreto. "It had something about the relationship between
them and the ambassador yes, but not anything about the ambassador
outside of the kidnapping. The book didn’t have anything about the
secret agent-slash-torturer."
So for more information Barreto went to Gabeira himself.
"Actually (Gabeira) wasn’t very helpful because he said, ‘That
person died. That was another life that I had,’" Barreto recalls.
"And I could understand him. When you go through what he went
through, torture, and it’s like now he’s a congressman and an
activist for the Green Party. He just didn’t want to open that
trunk."
Since Gabeira could not provide the details that Barreto needed
to perfect his film, the director turned elsewhere. He and
screenwriter Leopoldo Serran went to the Library of Congress and
UCLA to conduct research. Barreto also interviewed people involved
in Elbrick’s kidnapping as well as those involved with other
kidnappings. Among his sources was Elbrick’s daughter, Valerie.
"Valerie said at first she was very jealous of the kidnappers
because they were going to have her dad to themselves and she never
had her daddy just for herself," Barreto explains. "He was a true
diplomat. The house was always full of people. And then later she
said she was angry. She was upset."
He continues, "But then when he came back, in a way, she was
thankful because she said, ‘My father came back a better human
being. He was extremely cold, formal, distant human being. But when
he returned I got a hug and I didn’t remember the last time he had
hugged me.’"
Arkin also talked for hours with Elbrick’s daughter.
"It got wonderfully embarrassing in that she started thinking of
me as her father and I started pretending I was," Arkin smiles. "I
started to tell her to do certain things, she would end up starting
to do them and then (stop). It was very endearing."
Barreto was interested in these human connections and stayed
away from any political stances. And while the film was widely
received in Brazil, Barreto says that the left wing members of the
press criticized him for being to soft on the old dictatorship.
"I think that in this day and age it’s irresponsible to make
statements and use such a powerful medium as film to sort of preach
stuff," Barreto says emphatically. "I’m totally against it. Not
only now. I’ve always been against it. I think that political
engagement is a very limiting thing for an artist. I think that art
is about any kind of ideology and that’s the way it should
remain."
And because Barreto didn’t want to be limited as a filmmaker, he
left his home country for America in 1989 when film production in
Brazil came to a standstill. Since then he has completed three
films in the U.S. – "The Show of Force," "The Heart of Justice" and
"Carried Away" – before returning to film in Brazil for "Four
Days."
Arkin was enthusiastic about filming in South America.
"I’m in love with the Brazilians. I’ve been in love with that
culture since I was in my 20s," Arkin says. "It was a joy to be
down there. And there was a wonderful ease about the Brazilians, a
gentleness, a looseness."
However, with Barreto, the welcome was not as immediate.
"When I went back to Brazil I was sort of seen as the ugly
American because I was getting a little bit impatient and I hadn’t
worked there for eight years," Barreto remembers. "I was really
used to the pace here. It took me like a few weeks to get
acclimated to the Brazil pace. I deeply apologized and was deeply
embarrassed about my behavior. I said, ‘I’m sorry. It took me
awhile to adapt myself.’ I said, ‘What I’m not getting as quick as
I would imagine, what they don’t have in terms of professional
experience, they have in an enthusiasm.’"
Despite the long and arduous preproduction process, Barreto
enjoyed making the film and says that he would like to make a movie
in Brazil again.
FILM: "Four Days in September" opens on Friday.Claudia Abreu in
Bruno Barreto’s "Four Days in September."