This evening I went to a fancy movie theatre with a good, if small book store and a fancy café sharing its space. Suddenly I could tell I had been living too much in the slums because the upscale nature of everything was so unfamiliar. I was not quite sure I belonged at first. Lula, however, is more upwardly mobile than I.
I went to see the new biographical picture about our nation’s President, who is quite remarkable, as we know, and worth studying. The film itself is not challenging, but it is interesting and would be especially for people not familiar with Lula or who do not remember him from earlier on. Lula himself has already seen it.
Lula is a sertanejo, born on 27 October, 1945, so he is a Scorpio. In the film we get to see some dramatic events, starting with his birth and soon afterward, his father’s departure from the family with his pregnant girlfriend. Lula lost his finger when he was 19. His first wife died with their child when she was 22 and he was 26. His brother, also a labor activist, was tortured by the military regime and Lula himself was in jail when his mother died.
These are the sorts of things that happen to the poor, and this is why people do not like to be poor.
I did not know that two other films have been made about Lula, the 2004 documentaries Peões, by Eduardo Coutinho and Entreatos by Walter Salles. The entire story is fascinating, although Fabio Barreto’s film, the one I saw today, is a little flat.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I know what you mean about some of these upscale places, living as I do where there is nothing fancy. And then seeing a film about poor people. It’s puzzling. No wonder we have trouble figuring things out.
Yes. Well. Today we laughed and laughed about these Scandinavians who go to Haiti and give themselves a frisson of political correctness by paying a fancy hotel price to stay in a slum. I mean: they could afford to donate that to the slum dweller *and* stay in decent conditions themselves. I mean: putting yourself through that kind of real Hell only makes you feel better (if it does), it doesn’t help those who have to stay.
My sister tells a tale of giving a small sum of money to an organization for Bolivian orphans. The outfit offered to fly her down there to visit the orphanage. She asked them why they were willing to go to all that expense to treat her to a junket to Bolivia when they could spend that money on the orphans.
My sister and I think alike.
Well, now we have figured out how to take revenge on my landlord here for having substandard conditions in his rental. He is a fan of helping street kids. So I will tell him he swindled me and he owes me 1/3 of the money back, but I want him to donate it to an organization for street kids here – a very reputable one I know of! HAHAHA.