Brazilian director blasts "Elite Squad" critics

By Pedro Fonseca

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -
Brazilian director Jose Padilha,
winner of the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival for his
movie "Elite Squad," hit back at critics on Monday with all the
force of its antihero, police captain Nascimento.

"Elite Squad" (Tropa de Elite) tells the story of a police
special forces unit that uses brutal tactics, including torture
and executions, to combat drug gangs in the slums of Rio de
Janeiro.

Critics in Berlin were divided over the film, with some
praising it as a powerful story of the moral compromises police
accept in order to survive and others saying it glorified their
often ruthless methods.

Variety called it a "recruitment film for fascist thugs."

"The Variety critic was particularly stupid," Padilha told
a news conference in Rio de Janeiro. "To call the film fascist
is to ignore what the word fascist means."

"You only need to look in the dictionary. You have to be
stupid, not to know what fascist is."

The reception at the film festival, where it won the Golden
Bear award, mirrored a controversy in Brazil when it was
released late last year.

While many saw it as an expose of police violence, a number
of others lauded their tactics and said that was the best way
to deal with criminals.

Capitain Nascimento, the squad leader in the movie, became
a cult hero to the chagrin of filmmakers, who said they wanted
to show excessive police violence is as bad as crime itself.

In one of the most gruesome scenes, police torture a young
suspect, putting a plastic bag over his blood-covered head, to
obtain information. They then kill the youth.

"In Germany we didn't have a feeling of negative criticism
of the film. We felt the film was going really well. It was
only later on the Internet we saw the opposite," Padilha said.

"Elite Squad" is the latest in a series of acclaimed
Brazilian films showing Rio's ugly side, following the
Oscar-nominated "City of God" about gangs in a Rio slum.

Human rights groups criticize Rio's police and especially
the elite squad, the BOPE special unit. According to official
figures, police in the metropolitan Rio killed 1,214 suspects
described as "resisting arrest" last year, 22 percent more than
in 2006.

(Reporting by Pedro Fonseca; Writing by Angus MacSwan;
editing by Todd Eastham)

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