Rio de Janeiro is no stranger to the sound of gunfire or to images of out-of-breath policemen sprinting into the favelas. Each week the newspapers are filled with pictures of bulletproof vehicles and automatic weapons, of gun-battles and drug busts, of people being arrested and people being killed.
But Dancing With The Devil shows us something we have never before seen on the big screen: the faces of Rio’s drug traffickers and policemen, who tell their stories staring straight into the camera, without disguises or masks. Never before have we heard these people speak as they do in Dancing With he Devil. Their words show us the real life of one of Rio’s most-wanted drug traffickers, and the feelings of the policemen who are holding the rifles. The film demands that we turn our backs on the stereotypes surrounding the question of urban violence and bear witness to a reality that might make us deeply uncomfortable, but that we must see and hear.
A feared drug boss shows us how his leg has been destroyed by bullets and says he is tired of living in fear. Another trafficker says he thinks every day about leaving crime behind. The police claim to love the adrenaline of the confrontations, but say that each day, when they go out to work, they fear they may not return home. In the middle of this conflict an evangelical pastor offers shelter to men and women who have survived the death sentences imposed by the drug traffickers.
Since the 1980s, Rio’s slums have been controlled by illegal armed groups,traffickers or vigilantes, and those who live in these areas do so according to rules laid down by the leaders of these gangs. In recent years the control of these poor areas by armed groups has grown stronger.
Today 50,000 people are murdered in Brazil each year. The murder rate among Brazilians aged between 15 and 24 is the fifth highest in the world for this age group, with 50 murders for every 100,000 people. In Rio, the murder rate for young black and mixed-raced men aged between 23 and 24 is 400 for every 100,000. Nearly all of them live in Brazil’s favelas and impoverished suburbs.
As long as the majority of Rio’s residents – opinion makers, the middle class and the media – carry on deaf and blind to what is going on in the city’s favelas, we will not halt the tragedies that are taking place day after after. Criminals, police officers, religious leaders and slum residents develop complex relationships which we must get to know and understand if we want to improve life in our city. Dancing with the Devil shows us a Rio de Janeiro we must see and hear.