SABRINA, Guarajuba, Bahia, October 2022
The subject was anything but well-behaved, and I wanted to recreate that old beach house full of hidden cameras as a theatrical, staged space, without almost anyone knowing except Benamag and me—which we initially considered absurd, from a technical standpoint. Without a doubt, the first takes provoked a small, silent glee in us, filled with visceral, confusing, almost diabolical humor. A dynamic, unnerving confusion, by dint of making people appear in the house, brought a certain enigma to that unsure disorder; there not being exactly a script, in the first takes the "guests" didn't exactly speak to us, or to the cameras, they didn't even speak to each other --- they spoke to the air, to the immobile and hypersaturated presence of that house, while our cameras struggled to maintain that cold and watchful aura of kidnapping words and gestures, twisted facial expressions and unexpected bodily reactions --- a kind of suspense that prevented the gratuitous crystallization of the image into any evasive nothingness. By the third or fourth scene collection, we were no longer working with a comfortable notion of what the film should be, and I was often forced to intervene on set to "spontaneously modify" situations or dwindling dialogues—a true theatrical confrontation with reality, in Artaud's sense.
At night, white security lights projected from poles around the house, which had no wall and was beginning to be threatened by the rising tide. From the balcony of his secluded cottage, Benamag could contemplate the festive lights he had ordered added, without explaining his intention, which might not even have existed. Beforehand, he and I knew that what we were doing was forbidden and intended only for a small circle of initiates. A satellite antenna, about seven meters high, faced north—pointing to... where? Passing through the avenue of coconut and mulberry trees, coming from the beach, the "naive tourist" arrived at a grassy patch of Japanese grass, with the strip of land meeting the sand of the beach. We stipulated that any and all "guests" could only approach the house from the beach, for photographic purposes, and we blocked the street entrance.
That morning, Benamag and I conferred and established three visitors we could attract there the next day: he took charge of attracting a young woman who had attended one of his recent courses in New York, and I called Beatriz and Joel, a left-wing candidate for federal deputy who had not been elected in last Sunday's elections. He owned some inns in Camamu Bay that were always "full," despite never seeing guests there, and had taught me several tricks for safely laundering money in the real estate market. Beatriz had also learned from him and owned inns in the same region, despite being facing criminal charges after being denounced by the Bahia Public Prosecutor's Office for having received payments for an incalculable number of nights at his inns from people who had never stayed there. The candidate friend had also faced several such charges in the past, when he was secretary of a Workers' Party city hall in the interior of the state. He was even preventively detained and had some of his guesthouses sealed by the police.
ResponderExcluirIn the house itself, no different from the mansion where Palocci and lobbyists from the Workers' Party's corruption scheme met to negotiate the exchange of public funds and hold orgies with prostitutes, fueled by wine and cocaine: bedrooms, suites, bathrooms, kitchens, and offices with doors that led directly to the garage --- there, Benamag and I discussed the relationship between the indifference of detachment and the probable lack of skill of adherence, in the scenes in which we tried to fix reality within that invincibly static space facing the beach; the "'distressing familiarity of banal gestures,'' Benamag said, quoting Fellini, in which we intended to find the mobile and uncontaminated idea of the "danger of life."
ResponderExcluir
ResponderExcluir"Before they realize we have them in our hands," I told him, "we must plunge them, without renunciation or reservation, into the atrocious instrument of raw perception, into the acceleration of the fatal circle, into the merciless curve of pride and wounded ego. Exactly that! This immense spontaneous complicity that confesses and betrays itself, through the same spurious illusion of a prize that ultimately fails."
"Well," he replies, "if the light is sufficiently ghostly, at canapé time, it will reach the faces of the 'guests' in layers, revealing the entire metabolism of the spirit chained to a flesh embedded in the filth of life, where time accumulates and little by little burns away the mortal remains of destiny."
At that moment, all amusement seemed to have vanished from Benamag's face in favor of a rigidity not devoid of fear. The next day, shortly before lunch, when Elvira's black, spectral figure materialized in the house, I too shared her apprehension. In the darkest corner of the lawn, under a kiosk, on the other side of the sunlight, Professor Elvira seemed like a ghost of herself, awaiting her host. I remained in the cottage, with two camera operators, directing: "CLOSE! LIGHT! CUT! CLOSE! MICROPHONE!" in a projection distorted by the incredible awkwardness of the scene, which dragged on:
ResponderExcluirBENAMAG
(swim trunks, shirtless, smiling, hairy belly protruding, and sunglasses)
Happy, Professor? You look simply splendid.
ELVIRA
Somewhat without anything to orient myself in this place. Now that you have arrived, perhaps you will find some correctability, some artifice made of speech, sight, hearing, taste and being, capable of imitating LIGHT.
Continue in one minute but you can reread MEETHINGS here!
Excluirhttps://paranoidinformed.blogspot.com/2025/07/meetings-13.html
SABRINA
ResponderExcluir("I could see very clearly that what was at stake was movements of an easy and complicit subjectivity: CLOSE ON BENAMAG!")
BENAMAG
(an internal table of tastes and indifferences)
Flavor? Of flavor, teacher? Certainly: beluga caviar, lobsters, smoked sturgeon. The choice is yours.
ELVIRA
(in a generality that narrowed to the brilliant point of a salivating fascination of the palate)
That's what everyone wants, right? Caviar. Here in Brazil, even the political left has been given this nickname: CAVIAR LEFT, the same one that keeps promising meat and beer to the poor during elections, as if they were sharing meals at their own tables. In reality, they promise the poor the leftovers.
BENAMAG
ResponderExcluir(the attraction exerted on the people by certain stimulating images)
Certain promises stir people's innermost being: a barbecue, a party, a better job ---- it is necessary to interrogate the popular emotion to guess the reason for their interest and belief in an image: the Stimmung it represents, the new body in which it projects the easily deceived voter. Empty, naked, even outrageous words that highlight the practicality of lies in politics, the temptation to return to being a criminal "within the law," which politics has been offering for decades in the West, thanks to the institutional design of the "liberal" democratic state of law --- through which they will once again filter their ingenious money laundering scheme, now "vaccinated" by years of jail and convictions.
SABRINA
ResponderExcluir(entering the dialogue scene without introducing herself. CLOSE ON ELVIRA'S FACE, ASTONISHED)
For I have studied the disease deeply, my dears. And I have also lived in the mire (long, coal-black hair tied back in a tennis ponytail; a custom-made schoolgirl blouse and a navy blue, knee-length skirt—from her tone of voice, she seemed about three hundred years old; from her appearance, she was in her early twenties; she didn't seem to belong to anyone, least of all to Benamag. Elvira looked at her like a lesbian, stunned by her beauty)
SABRINA
ResponderExcluirBehold, a new crop of political opinion leaders arrives in Congress and some state governments to try to speak the truth to the people and to power itself. That the dismissal of a criminal case without considering its merits, due to a hypothetical formal defect, is nothing more than a half-truth presented as a full and frank confession, whose photo of the meeting that reveals the illicit favor even makes us think. The famous photo of "Lula's adventure" in Guarujá. A photo in a "position of existence," which doesn't leave us indifferent, right? And to think that former President Collor was ousted from power because of an Elba whose illicit origins weren't even proven. Old, lined, sickly-looking faces, negotiating luxurious gifts and the most discreet way to launder them.
(tense pause, controlled vehemence)
The photo tells us: "DON'T TALK idly, DON'T SCREW UP WITH THE PARTY'S POWER PERPETUATION PLANS." Soon, a dripping handshake, dripping with public funds, from overpriced contracts between the government and construction companies. In the middle of it, the keys to some obscure, expensive properties, held by front men. Then, all the newspapers begin to pick up the rest of the information about the scheme in the air. The police no longer need to be consulted, so commonplace has the practice of corruption become under the Workers' Party government that its members have begun to carry suitcases of cash through airports and luxury hotels, hopping in and out of private jets. During their working hours, a horde of public servants co-opted from above spend hours side by side in Brasília, feeling the heat of each other's bodies, responding to suspicious phone calls, scheduling meetings, suggesting amounts, calculating bribes, how to receive or deliver them, accidentally brushing hands, sometimes trembling and sweating, sometimes rejoicing and beating their chests ---
Excluirsecretly sharing every embezzlement of funds under their noses, every false trail planted in the path of the investigation, every small fish sent to be sacrificed, every head rolled into a dead end, every inevitable plea bargain, every momentary triumph in the Judiciary, for every habeas corpus a new bottle of champagne.
ExcluirELVIRA
ResponderExcluir(While Benamag laughs, Elvira keeps her feverish gaze fixed on Sabrina, wondering if she's his daughter)
To counter black magic methods honed by two decades of PT rule, and another two before they came to power (José Dirceu-Lula versus Celso Daniel), the naive moralism of two academics isn't enough, right? (Looks at Benamag)
BENAMAG
Vienna, Austria, my city, doesn't count politically. And my Portuguese has been quite reasonable for a long time, ever since Fellini introduced me to Carlos Castaneda in Rome in the 1970s, amid a crowd of Sunday shoppers. And who was there too? Richard Morse, the American Brazilianist who wrote The Mirror of Prospero. We all tested our Portuguese. Fellini asked Castaneda in Portuguese if Journey to Tula (his Toltec film) could be filmed in Brazil, and Morse suggested that the film would hinder economic growth under Geisel because of its "energy matrix" --- we laughed.
(At this point, only the wind spoke)
Continue in one minute
ResponderExcluirELVIRA
ResponderExcluirCarlos Castaneda? Did he speak Portuguese?
BENAMAG
Brazilian, from Mairiporã, São Paulo --- nephew of Oswaldo Aranha, cousin of former Supreme Court Justice Celso de Melo, who put Lula back in the race after voting to convict several Workers' Party members. Just because Bolsonaro came to power.
SABRINA
Okay, it's an interesting hypothesis. But Amy Wallace claims he's Peruvian, giving convincing details in her book *The Sorcerer's Apprentice* --- how unlikely God's intervention in the matter! Speaking of which, look who just arrived. This time, she forgot her fishtail in the sea (she pointed to the beach, where Beatriz was coming from, wearing a Lula shirt and a bikini in Workers' Party colors).
(CLOSE! CAMERA CHANGE! CLOSE ON ELVIRA, STUPIDIFIED)
Why don't we write the story of this little woman who's coming, Benamag? According to Le Carré, in "Our Kind of Traitor": "You buy a prime piece of land, usually on a paradisiacal beach. You pay in cash, build a luxury, five-star resort. Maybe even more than one. In cash. You build about fifty bungalows. You decorate them with the finest furniture, stock the place with the best cutlery, china, and linens. From then on, the hotels and bungalows are always full. But mind you, no one ever stays there. If a travel agent calls: 'Sorry, we're full.' Every month, a big shot from property security goes to the bank and unloads all the money earned from renting out the apartments and bungalows, from the restaurants, casinos, bars, and nightclubs. After two years, the resorts are in perfect condition to be sold with a stellar commercial track record." Right, Beatriz?
ExcluirBEATRIZ
ResponderExcluir(vague, easygoing, even cynical, so willing was she to dodge the arbitrariness of that welcoming analysis)
Right. It turns out Bahia isn't Madeira Island; here we have the Public Prosecutor's Office. Our power surge is always at stake, in the media and the police. Why do you think I'll vote for the Workers' Party again? Because it was during the Lula and Dilma administrations in Brazil, and Wagner and Rui in Bahia, that I made my fortune—the governor of Bahia's famous helicopter and his famous accommodations in luxurious resorts on the Bahia coast, all expenses paid. In a way, anything you can rent will do (triple-bedroom apartments, hotels, cars, farms, land, warehouses, etc.), as long as you know people capable of falsifying the paperwork for you in the state. To launder money safely, you need an entire structure, preferably involving politicians and public officials corrupted by them, from the top, as has always been the case in these governments..............
....................The police investigation into Rui and his "pandemic management" remains open (in testimony attached to the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) inquiry, the governor of Bahia did not clarify doubts about the R$48 million scam involving phantom respirators (which were not delivered) from Hempcare, a cannabis-based medicine company). For every question from the police chief, an excuse.
ExcluirSABRINA
ResponderExcluirA sketch of an eidetic science, right? (laughs) Demonstrative contingency --- an irreducibility that, despite everything, doesn't lose sight of the intentionality of the perpetrators of the crime and their target, imbued with greed and Lula's euphoria. In fact, the Connections Diagram, in a very unorthodox way, revealed an entire network of criminal will at work, branching off, disguising itself "at full tilt" (and how many alcoholics there are in the Workers' Party!), instead of following the logical path, thanks to the actions of lobbyists for the PAC construction companies.
ELVIRA
(Looking at Benamag questioningly, like: Who are these women? Where have I ended up? Feeling her blood poisoned, the fibers of her being corroded --- insidiousness disguised as humorous advice)
A suspicious insidiousness, of a language that attempts to translate conceptual content through narrative aggregates, subordinated to the sensitive subjectivity that, in the ambiguous political opacity of the criminal relationship, becomes mutant, a media secretion full of volatile temperatures and connotations, in search of the arcane neutrality of facts.
BENAMAG
ResponderExcluir(Looking at the beach, where Joel is approaching: the camera flickers shakily to the sea behind Joel, full of fishing boats --- a 90-foot luxury yacht, blue, is anchored some distance away, from where the sound of electronic music comes. Perhaps someone is celebrating something, despite Joel's election loss --- perhaps just trying to console him with cocaine and prostitutes. The camera jumps to the stern: crew in Workers' Party shirts. A speedboat returns quickly to the yacht, after unloading Joel on the sand. The camera also captures a woman on the yacht in a billowing skirt holding a glass in one hand and a hat in the other; another woman follows, and then a group of men in white and red, wearing Lula t-shirts. They exchange hugs, pop champagne, snort cocaine.)
BENAMAG: I've never identified with this inferior Trotskyist baronage, these scumbag whites who found left-wing parties in Europe and South America to make dirty money from politics and become ridiculous new rich people waving to the market (the excessive looks he gives Elvira disturb Joel's arrival)
JOEL
ResponderExcluir(Bad smell? Illegality? Crime? As if demonstrating something forbidden with his arrival)
I see your nails aren't painted red, Sabrina.
BEATRIZ
Mine aren't either, Joel.
SABRINA
(They were scenes, a bit like Greuze, with all the harshness of the subject)
Just critical behavior, without political or sexual connotations. In Brazil, as in the United States, during elections, the people are conditioned by superstitions and publicity sentimentality, by passionate, irrational, and inept adherence, always surrendered to blind and unbridled emotions and perceptions, childish, manipulable. Every adult and autonomous hypothesis tends to create a certain discomfort, faced with a media information system that has assumed delirious proportions.
JOEL
ResponderExcluir(looking for a plausible rule to name the elements; co-presence of his particular interest in the matter; according to the law of opportunism --- moved by the judicious rotation of the word?)
The Bacurau illusion of a Workers' Party Northeast became an unreliable mirage, since Lula reduced the role of social movements in his government, back in 2004, in favor of alliances bought in the Center, and the poor no longer had a voice in the Palace --- here too, in our states, the right began to represent real and defensible desires for the same poor, while we kept promising them barbecue and beer, without ever delivering. We only delivered embedded taxes and exorbitant interest rates in the banks. The old clichés that a new left, unintelligent and therefore prone to underestimating the critical capacity of the poorest segments of the population, has chosen as its strategy: thus emerged our new lobotomized leftist base (the work of lobbyists?), which only knows how to do politics if it's in power, lying down and rolling around. In other words, it no longer knows how to do politics.
*
ResponderExcluirSABRINA
From this meeting in Guarajuba onward, my film began to exist as never before. In flashes, in fragments. The next day, Benamag and I surrendered ourselves to the seduction of those flashes, and to the hundred different and opposing solutions that appeared for each of the "characters."
Early in the evening, Benamag and Elvira (completely drunk) went to the suite on the second floor of the house, where everything (including the elderly sex scenes) was filmed by our cameras. A prim aristocrat and petty sexual despot, Benamag's great moment in the post-coital scene was when he lit a Turkish cigarette and, remembering his time as a student of Heidegger in Freiburg, said, quoting Huxley this time: "I am a learned book lover, one for whom the world outside my reading room is only an exasperating source of interruptions to the serious business of reading," and scratched his sticky old balls under the sheet.
He said:
ResponderExcluirK
ResponderExcluir(All reality receding into the deserted silence of the beach, a certain block of the past that he had considered, until then, subconscious came into question --- and the psychotherapist agreed with him: a very poorly analyzed, blinded mixture, too smeared with suspicions synonymous with self, inexorably walled in, in a bitterness of self-reproach that leaped too much between various currents of opposing forces, in discordant crawling with the world)
And what now?, a film? Seriously, Sabrina? to gather key witnesses in the process? (laughs) It's not possible to make a political film about the last fifteen years without making a film exclusively about myself.
(reality closed in on itself, which he (K) was, THICKENING, its shell-like quality, playing blind man's buff, taking note of one and the other echoes, and its carpet of poisoned oysters touching politics --- YES! --- doing, giving everything an indecipherable face, full of past grumpiness)
So much of everything from the sinking world in my repressed memory, perhaps that entire goal of the universe, scratching at my pristine shell. How naive (yet!) to believe I could pass through these illusions, these captive narrownesses of the self, these soul's victories spread across the floor of the psyche, amidst lugubrious shadows and metaphorical high voltage, to a cleanly new state of being, crystallized in a film. In any case, all these memories cannot be so simplified, burlesquely debated, set to film, placing images and voices where so many periods and commas in the confused answers I could now give to the cameras, then obliterating them all, later, with dialogue and scenarios and the amplification of voices in chorus for the purposes of narrative refinement. NO: I would restart the journey in the entire content of emptiness, breathing only jostling images, filling everything in its harsh northerly direction, UNHEARING MYSELF, sweating-watering its dancing molecules of crumbling time and moral depth, until the schizoid laughed at the end.
ExcluirSABRINA
ResponderExcluir(Successive series of events, elevated to the utmost moral error, now gave birth to darkness and various forms of chaos in Sabrina's eyes that, by swimming, deep within her soul, had turned her into a rigid, unbreakable wreck, so egocentric and miraculous, with the draft of the script in her hand. A yearning for mystery deaf to all human retort, she arrived there at that old, crumbling beach attic, already well-known for fights with burst eardrums, surfing the ashes of crazy floods of nightclubs, piles of money and escape routes wandering around in search of gold, a succession of waves of prostituted hopes once formulated with infamous swelling of pretensions and then lost in a jet of sudden fury in fatal obscurity, everything still ringing like a police siren in the anthrous oval space of the world's being.)
Do you really have any idea what all that was like? true, K(?)
Continue in one minute
ExcluirI m prefering make a new post!
ResponderExcluir