Walter Salles has it right about violence and silence

By Ray Bennett

Walter Salles, whose new film “Linha de Passe”, about a mother and her four sons struggling to get by in Sao Paulo, Brazil, opens in the U.K. Friday, says there are two things that bother him about most movies. One is that someone, usually more than one, has to die violently. The other is the complete disregard for silence. He is not alone.

Salles makes wonderful movies such as “Central Station” and “The Motorcycle Diaries” and his new one, directed with Daniela Thomas, is another one well worth seeing. The music, as always, is by the great Gustavo Santaolalla.

In a Q&A with my old pal, Daily Telegraph critic David Gritten following a BAFTA screening Tuesday night, Salles praised Sandra Corveloni, whose performance as the mother in the film won her the best actress prize at the Festival de Canne. Salle said that a major influence on his film was Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1962 film “Mamma Roma” starring Anna Magnani.

This is what my Hollywood Reporter colleague Deborah Young said about “Linha de Passe” at the Festival de Cannes:

“Twelve years after co-directing “Foreign Land,” filmmakers Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas have returned to update their portrait of urban Brazil, which they left in the economic throes of president Fernando Collor. “Linha de passe” is a far more successful film, both as a drama and in depicting the reality of growing up poor without no future in sight.”