Os Carvoeiros

Documentary about the rural population who earn their living as coal miners, thus helping to keep metallurgic activity going and contributing to the forest devastation in South America.


　　This documentary didn't click for me immediately. Except for a few screens of text the narrative is related entirely by the charcoal people and landscape. The situation the film conveys is stark and simple on a factual level - The World demands iron and Brazil's expendable labor force and vast forests provide the charcoal needed to extract it from the ore. However, to tell the story in a meaningful way the film makers deliberately take us on a slow tour of the harsh reality of life in Brazil's charcoal producing regions.


　　We watch extremely hard working people bake in the tropical sunlight and smoky charcoal fires. They tell us about their lives while beautiful cinematography shows us their dreary yet visually poetic daily duties. One subject mentioned multiple times is the possibility that literacy and formal education might spare their children from their own fate.


　　The charcoal people aren't the only humans suffering on Earth right now. Nevertheless, after seeing this film you'll think more specifically about their plight. We all lose as they're forced to tear down more precious forest land to produce iron for the rest of us and feed themselves.

生态道德困境，虽然当时政府给予每个孩子25usd的补贴，某种程度更让他们坚定走下去这条路，与导演的立场如出一辙，难以下决心进行强制干预（不知雨林自身的复原力如何），会联想到哥伦比亚渔民用粉红河豚作为鱼饵捕捉Piracatinga和哥斯达黎加国家公园内协助生态旅游业的居民，再联系到今日博索纳罗执政下，雨林保护问题已站到风头浪尖之上