A Long Journey

A Long Journey is the story of three brothers who reach adolescence in the late 1960s. The documentary's drama storyline is guided by the younger sibling's story. Heitor is sent to London by his family, worried that he would enter the struggle for freedom against the Brazilian dictatorship. In London, however, Heitor dives head on into the "Swinging London" and, just like the European and American youth of the time period, he experiments with drugs and the mystic allure of India.

In the nine years he has traveled around the world, from 1969 to 1978, Heitor has regularly written to his family. Against the interview and the letters, we have the off-screen comments of Heitor's sister, Lucia Murat, director of the movie, who was a political prisoner during the Brazilian dictatorship years, and who has become a renown artist, extensively traveling abroad, almost in a process contrary to that experienced by her brother, who goes from being a free traveler to a captive of madness parameters. Finally, the third brother, who had been arrested for smoking pot in Brazil in his younger years, became an important scientist.

Therefore, the documentary movie intends to deal with fundamental issues, such as madness, politics, and fundamentalism from a point-of-view based on concrete experiences. Deep down, it is a documentary movie portraying a specific time period and dealing with memories. Not only due to the format of the investigation, but also dealing with the reasons driving Heitor to give the interviews and driving Lucia Murat to gather together the letters her mother kept safe for all her life. Miguel, the third brother, has passed away. And the only thing they can do when facing such a loss is to recover the memory of the time period they've lived.

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Statement

A Long Journey is the story of three brothers who reach adolescence in the late 1960s. It is a personal view of an age that lived radical politics, drugs and armed struggle. The story line of the documentary is given by the story of the younger brother, Hector, which goes to London in 1969, sent by his family that, worried that he would enter the struggle for freedom against the Brazilian dictatorship, following the footsteps of her sister. Ironically Heitor dives head on into the "Swinging London" and, just like the European and American youth of the time period, he experiments with drugs and the mystic allure of India. This meant a life full of visceral experiences, ranging from a prison in the Netherlands in 70 years for drug traffic, until he makes two journeys around the world, traveling as a hippie, to finally be admitted to a nursing home by the Brazilian Embassy in India.

In the end of 1978, the American Embassy had around 80 boys in the same situation, lost and crazy (by Western standards) by diving headlong into a completely different culture. Brazil Ambassador decides to inform the family and the the brothers' mother travels to New Dheli, to bring Heitor back. He resist as he can to traditional treatments and is admitted to psychiatric hospitals during his crisis. Finally, closely monitored by the two brothers, is submetted to regular treatment.

During the nine years he has traveled around the world, from 1969 to 1978, Heitor has regularly written to his family. There are hundreds of cards that portrays his impressions of the universe hippie of that time and unknown countries, as the South Sea Islands, Indonesia, Thailand, Afghanistan and many others. The documentary presents chronologically the most meaningful of these letters, interspersed with interviews conducted nowadays with Hector, which tells now what he could not tell on the letters: the excess of drugs, arrests, all that was illegal and unable to be accepted by middle-class family for whom he wrote.

In this sense, the documentary is the reality experienced by him and what he could write. Both are real, as if they were two layers, the one that the family could absorb and the other. These interviews with Hector, posteriorly edited in the documentary, that were made for about a year and a half, based on letters he had written. Against the interview and the letters, we have the off-screen comments of Heitor's sister, Lucia Murat, director of the movie, who was a political prisoner during the Brazilian dictatorship years, and who has become a renown artist, extensively traveling abroad, almost in a process contrary to that experienced by her brother, who goes from being a free traveler to a captive of madness parameters. Finally, the third brother, who had been arrested for smoking pot in Brazil in his younger years, became an important scientist.

The documentary proposal is to deal with crucial issues such as madness, politics, fundamentalism from concrete experiences, pointing out the irony of certain situations, such as the the letter that Hector writes from Afghanistan in 1973, when he delightely talks about a society that seemed heaven, away from consumption, close to nature, emphasizing the hospitality of those people.

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