LONDON, England -- This week, I had the luck to meet Brazilian filmmaker and one of the leaders of the revival in fortunes of Latin American film, Walter Salles, who was in London promoting his latest film "Linha de Passe," which he co-directed with Daniela Thomas.

Set in Sao Paulo, the film is a beautiful, if bleak story of four brothers from four different fathers and their pregnant, chain-smoking, heavy-drinking mother. They are part of Brazil's vast underclass and are -- in their own ways -- all struggling to beat destiny and forge a different, better future for themselves.

What's really interesting about this film in the context of Brazilian filmmaking right now is that it refuses to glamorize the violence of favela life in the way that films such as "City of God" and this year's "Elite Squad" could be said to.

Instead of super-saturated colors and jerky editing, "Linha de Passe" takes a more meditative turn with Salles focusing on the lives and characters of these five people. The grey skies and washed-out palette complement the seemingly hopeless social obstacles they face every day.

I met Salles in Covent Garden and he told me how much he loves London because he gets a chance to see friends, like composer Philip Glass, who he had breakfast with before we met.

Salles struggled through his jetlag saying: "Making a film is like running 1,800 meters and launching a film is like running a marathon." He was completely charming and talked extensively about "Linha de Passe," as well as his upcoming adaptation of Jack Kerouac's cult 50s novel, "On the Road" with Francis Ford Coppola, off the back of his success adapting Che Guevara's early journal in the "The Motorcycle Diaries."

I asked him about the difficulties of adapting such a cult novel and if he's confident he can satisfy the book's dedicated fans.

"That is the same question I had to ask myself when I adapted 'The Motorcycle Diaries,'" he said, "Because obviously there were so many followers of Ernesto Guevara ... and [I tried] to do it in the most authentic manner, and try to be as faithful to the essence of the book as I could, so this is what I will try to bring to 'On The Road.'"

He wasn't giving away much about who he has in mind to play the two lead roles in the film. When I asked him if he had any ideas, in the collaborative way that has made him such a star of Latin cinema, he said, "Not yet, you wanna help me?"

So let's lend Salles a hand: Who do you think should play Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty in "On the Road"?

Linha de Passe is out in UK cinemas now.

-- From CNN's Mairi Mackay

Labels: francis ford coppola, jack kerouac, linha de passe, on the road, the motorcycle diaries, walter salles

LONDON, England -- I asked Walter Salles which five Latin American films he would recommend watching. Here are his suggestions in no particular order:

1. 'Leonera' (‘Lions Den’)
(Pablo Trapero, 2008)
Another prison movie, but a very smart one, starring Argentinian Trapero's wife, Martina Gusman. She plays Julia, a pregnant woman, perhaps wrongly incarcerated for a murder. The film follows her years in a wing for mothers and babies and her battle to keep son Thomas inside with her. Trapero's battle is to keep clichés at bay, and through subtle camerawork and Gusman's acting, this is done grippingly.

2. 'Blindness'
(Fernando Meirelles, 2008)
Dramatic thriller adaptated from José Saramago's 1995 novel about a society suffering an epidemic of blindness. Written by Don McKellar, the film stars Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. Saramago originally refused to sell the film rights, scared that they would fall into the wrong hands, but Meirelles was able to acquire them on the condition the film would be set in an unrecognizable city.

3. 'La Mujer sin Cabeza' ('The Headless Woman’)
(Lucrecia Martel, 2008)
A woman perhaps runs over a dog on the highway and, possibly as a result, suffers her own injury. Dazed and forgetful, she wanders through her newly defamiliarized routine, engaging in all manner of impulsive behaviour, always with a gracious smile and quizzical air. For her third feature, the Argentine director of "La Ciénaga" and "The Holy Girl" has created a comedy of disassociation. "La Mujer" is typically dense often funny and, no less than the protagonist, the viewer is compelled to live in the moment.

4. 'Memorias del Subdesarrollo' ('Memories of Underdevelopment')
(Tomas Gutierrez Alea, 1968)
Hailed as one of the most sophisticated films ever to come out of Cuba in the early days of Castro's revolution, the film is visionary Cuban director Alea's tour de force. Sergio's wife, parents and friends have all left Cuba in the wake of the Bay of Pigs incident. Alone in a brave new world, Sergio feels the constant threat of foreign invasion while chasing young women all over Havana. He finally meets Elena, a young virgin girl he seeks to mould into the image of his ex-wife, but at what cost to himself?

5. 'Terra em Transe' ('Land Entranced')
(Glauber Rocha, 1967)
Rocha once said, "Brazil is a carnival that must be destroyed" and in this film he takes the notion to heart with a stunning assault on the corruption of the Brazilian bourgeois ruling class in the wake of the country's 1964 coup. Focused on the conflict between a populist governor and a right-wing dictator set in the fictional country of Eldorado, the film’s delirious camerawork and operatic scope brilliantly convey Brazil’s "permanent state of madness."

Labels: walter salles