For many people out there who haven't experienced the hardship of controversial and conflictive unpopular economical/policial/social measures taken by
governments in order to control inflation and save the economy, "Confisco" ("Confiscation") deals exactly with those issues and it teaches valuable lessons about politics,
the monetary system and how usually populist politicians and ministers should stay out of business of controlling a nation's destiny.
The infamous economical measure of president Collor's confiscation of people's savings over a certain ammount they had in the bank left countless sectors of
population without that hard earned money when they needed the most. I was only a toddler back in the day, only became familiar after studying history and after seeing the
early minutes of Walter Salles' "Terra Estrangeira" which presents the exact dimension on how people got completely lost when the plan was released by Collor administration.
In the movie, a senior lady commits suicide after finding out that all her pension was taken and frozen by the government. In this documentary you'll hear similar news
(the dentist case) or even violent acts inside the banks since there was a frantic rush to take out what you can before the government act (but everybody failed).
And who's to blame for such a mess? Forget about the past 21 years of military control and the idiotic plans of Sarney during the democracy return. Newcomes in the
game yet an expert in economy Zélia Cardoso de Mello rushed with the plan after 1989 election and it became that government's first act. People had their salary frozen,
literally taken and many people, businessman lost their business, had to change careers or simply lost everything. And the main goal of the movie is to show the two faces
of the deal: we have Zélia, living comfortably in New York, and we also have a simple family who went through a difficult period in their lives in the early 1990's just
when they were about to expand their business with the buying of a second truck.
It's interesting to note the idealism about Zélia when it comes to presenting such unpopular risky plan from the get-go and how tough it was to see the public
perception on her (the first female minister of economy in Brazil) and the media's views on her, considering her as someone who used difficult terms to explain the plan which
only angered and confused the public; the only aspect we all understood is that the money was gone and we'd suffer the consequences. No one was saved, from richer classes to the
poorest of the bunch since their limited budget was worthless since inflation was still rampant. The film doesn't have the time to cover all sectors (like culture and
film sector which were practically extint with such government) but you get the real feeling of how difficult it was to lived through that time.
But the case was ultimately made: public administrastion fail in the eyes of the public if the economy goes bad and the minister in charge is a total disaster. You
probably know what happened next: lots of downfall, from the minister to the president, impeached after countless corruption charges. "Confisco" works as a bright and
difficult yet important history lesson on politics, economical measures, and how drastic plans can affect people's lives if not made with study and care. Looking back at
1989 when the conflict between the righeous right versus the idealistic left viewed as a Communist takeover, the paranoia worked to incite fear on voters but ultimately
things got completely reversed when they were in power. The former ruined everything and stood in power for 2 years while the latter, although only got in office almost
two decades later, went on and succeed in everything that they failed. And history keeps on repeating the same fears, the same ideals. It's a recipe to disaster.
As for Zélia, can we blame her? Positively, along with everyone involved with an improvisational plan that didn't work for anyone except, maybe, for one percent of
the people...those in charge. Gladly, things changed and improved on the same decade but it took a damned long time. 9/10.
