First-time writer-director Jorge Duran - a native Chilean who resides and works in Brazil - helmed Proibido proibir (AKA Forbidden to Forbid), a muckraking drama that aggressively unearths and explores the social issue of street violence at the hands of Brazilian authorities. The film opens by exploring the volatile love triangle that develops between three students at the Federal University: undergraduate sociology major Leon; his architecture student paramour, Leticia; and medical student Paulo, Leon's best friend and bunkmate, with whom Leticia is deeply smitten. Paulo is enrolled in an internship at the University Hospital, where he and Leon and Leticia all become acquainted with Rosalina, a terminally ill woman estranged from her two boys. She asks her new friends to look into her sons' whereabouts, and in searching for the boys, they run headfirst into merciless on-street violence at the hands of Brazilian cops. It is a subject Leon knows all too well, as policeman gunned down his street vendor brother not long ago. Fate intervenes when he and Leticia find Rosalina's sons, and attempt to save the youngest, but Leon - like his brother - falls into the path of a policeman's bullet. The bullet only injures him, however, and Leticia takes Leon home, so that Paulo can perform an emergency operation and remove the bullet. In the process, the love between Leon and Leticia deepens, while the bonds friendship grow tighter among the three.
by Nathan Southern
synopsis
