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By Kane Geary O’ Keeffe Caru Alves de Souza’s second feature film, My Name is Baghdad, operates as one part social drama, and one part skate video. De Souza’s use of gritty ground level cinematography, courtesy of Camila Cornelsen, and semi professional actors effectively conjures an authentic vision of Sao Paulo’s skate culture. A well written script utilises naturalistic dialogue to convey the feel of skate videos reminiscent of the late nineties, all in the service of addressing relevant issues that run throughout Sao Paulo’s working class neighbourhoods. Baghdad, her family, and her skater cliques are closely followed as they manoeuvre through Sao Paulo’s sense of geographical entrapment, police brutality, and dominating sense of machismo in the local social scenes. Wearing its fem punk inspirations on its sleeve, My Name is Baghdad is ultimately about the bonds of sorority, both chosen and unchosen.
Living with her mom and two sisters, our title character spends her days in working class Sao Paulo at the local skatepark with her male friends. Decidedly androgynous in her appearance and a tomboy at heart, Baghdad feels at home with these young men as we observe their friend group continually work together to develop their skating skills. Throughout the course of the film, the inherently darker face of working class Sao Paulo comes to the forefront, as the male dominated social structures of the metropolis become more apparent to Baghdad. Growing tired of the machismo present in the local night club and skate circles, Baghdad eventually falls in with a group of all girl skaters, and her newly founded bonds of sorority change her life for the better. My Name is Baghdad boasts a stellar cast of actors both professional and amateur that bring a vibrant skate scene to life. Grace Orsato’s performance as our titular character is an understated one which allows the world of Sao Paulo to inhabit the screen as its own central character without Baghdad dominating the screen. The rest of the cast inhabit what I would consider to be Baghdad’s greatest strength, its naturalistic integration of representation. The decision to work with a racially diverse community of actors, including member of the trans community and the differently abled, imbues Sao Paulo with a lived in sense of community that comes across as genuine and culturally diverse without the film drawing attention to itself as a pillar of representation as is sometimes the case with bigger productions such as Disney’s problematic management of minority characters in its recent Star Wars movies. Baghdad’s diverse community gives us insight into how the hardships of working class life in Sao Paulo permeate different demographics in the metropolis, and is conveyed expertly through the film’s charmingly diverse cast. One of the hardships that envelops all of the characters in My Name is Baghdad is the sense of geographical entrapment that comes from feeling stuck in Sao Paulo. This is best exemplified on a thematic level by Baghdad’s kid sister Bia, who spends the duration of the film dreaming of leaving Sao Paulo aboard Nasa’s first manned flight to Mars. This subplot provides plenty of humour as Bia attempts to train herself to see in the dark in order to adapt to her notion of Mars’ climate, as well as creating video applications for Nasa with her sisters. While endearing, Bia’s subplot embodies each character’s will to escape the hardships of Sao Paulo. Police brutality is one such social hardship in Sao Paulo’s working class communities and is addressed in My Name is Baghdad to chilling effect. During the film’s second act, Baghdad and her friends are violently searched and profiled by police for no apparent reason. These officers target Baghdad in particular and harass her over her androgynous appearance. Critics Joao Costa Vargas and Jaime Amparo Alves note of Sao Paulo’s issue with Symbolic police violence, “Examples of symbolic violence would be stereotypes related to race, gender and social geography especially at the neighbourhood level that predispose and justify the use of lethal force by the police” (Vargas Alves 612). As such, witnessing the police bully Baghdad over her appearance and association with a male group of friends devolves into stereotype based threats as they assume Baghdad keeps male friends in the name of sexual promiscuity. De Souza’s utilisation of ground level handheld cinematography injects this horrifying scene with a fly in the wall documentary feel that aids in conveying the reality that incidents such as this occur in the real day to day lives of Sao Paulo’s inhabitants. This day to day life as documented in My Name is Baghdad is also plagued by a toxic sense of machismo present in Sao Paulo’s social scenes. De Souza uses the surface level unity of the skate scene to contrast the troubling gender divisions in the city’s nightlife. In a report of Sao Paulo’s nightclub typography, Claudia M. Carlini & Zila M. Sanchez note that “overcrowding above the maximum capacity and strong sexual competition among the men for the women make these venues more prone to sexual violence” (Carlini Sanchez 1807). This notion of a nightlife dominated by sometimes violent machismo materializes in My Name is Baghdad through a drunken encounter between Baghdad and her supposed male friend Clever. Clever attempts to sexually assault Baghdad in a nightclub after she turns down his advances. This shocking encounter marks a turning point for Baghdad and the film as a whole as Baghdad becomes aware of the toxic male culture that exists within many of Sao Paulo’s social scenes. My Name is Baghdad places a spotlight on many of the social hardships faced by the working class inhabitants of Sao Paulo. Despite these hardships, the film conjures a mostly optimistic tone through a focus on the bonds forged in youth and the positive effects of sorority. Baghdad’s skater girl friends draw out a more energetic layer of her character that’s reflected in Orsato’s performance. Baghdad’s dynamic with her sisters and mother comes to be defined by a playful sense of contentment in each other's company despite the trials of the outside world. The same can be said of Baghdad’s sisterly skater girl clique, who all thrive in each other’s encouraging presence while also acknowledging the misogynistic forces that prevent them from fully integrating with the male skater groups of the city. De Souza is conscious of the contrast between the difficulties of working class life and the positive bonds forged in overcoming those hardships together. Ultimately, My Name is Baghdad successfully sheds a light upon many facets of working class life in Sao Paulo . De Souza is assured in her portrayal of the positive effects of social bonds as a means of overcoming very real hardships. Bolstered by immersive ground level cinematography and the natural implementation of a terrifically diverse cast, My Name is Baghdad promises an exciting career ahead for Caru Alves De Souza and her collaborators.
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