This miniseries by TV Globo was one of their most important yet forgotten efforts of all time when it comes to raise social awareness about an ignored
but important topic of its time: the AIDS. It was the very first program to ever discuss and present the reality of a person infected with the virus and the
obstacles faced by a serum positive in a time when very little was known about the disease. I give lots of praise for its value, quality content, without being
awfully didatic but obviously there's some bumps on the way. The effort is powerfully noble, greatly presented and it needs to be seen even now, despite the
medicine advances related to HIV treatment despite numbers still getting higher and higher everywhere.
Globo's strategy was poor because they didn't offered us a gay man who contracted the virus through careless sexual relation (the most obvious scenario
at the time); but they managed to get the audience by give us an investigative plot where a heterosexual guy was infected due to a blood transfusion after surviving
a plane crash. At the time, the network was sort of like distancing themselves in creating more controversie and discussions that was needed - it'd take more than
20 years for them to show a gay couple having a kiss on primetime.
Anyway, here's the story: businessman Léo (Jayme Periard) survives a plane crash, gets badly injured and somehow someone made a blood transfusion right at the plane crash site and later on he discovers he got AIDS. His mission from now on is to discover which passenger was the disease carrier; at the same time he deals with his ex-girlfriend and his associates at the firm, a couple (played by Jonas Bloch and Lilia Cabral), of whom he reveals his condition - the man becoming his loyal friend and the woman becoming a prejudiced person who fears having contact with Léo. I won't stick much to the story because it's better when you see it - even though I've got an edited version of it (they mention about a couple involved in the blood trafficking business but I never seen those people in the whole series). Léo tracks down all the survivors which includes womanizers of countless relations; Aurélio, a discreet gay man (nicely played by Edwin Luisi) whom we later find that his young lover is a terminal AIDS patient (and I still wonder who played that boy. The credits mention a woman but it's not the case. It was a very good actor who vanished from the screen); and other characters. Léo fights prejudice from the people who know but gets some help from his ex-girlfriend, a doctor (Othon Bastos) and others on the way.
The idea of using the device of a "detective story" mixed with the AIDS panic was interesting, good enough to attract viewers and discuss an important and neglected theme at the time. Before that, there was only lousy tragic movies that weren't truly informative about the disease and only presented morbid aspects. "O Portador" ("The Carrier") enlights people about ways of contraction, educates and informs people about the realities HIV positive people live and how it's not like an eternal damnation - even though for Léo and others it feels that way because back then it was a death sentence. Globo and its creators deserve credit for bringing the topic to millions of viewers. Not sure about its ratings back then, all I know is that it was never reprised (and they do repeat old shows in their channels every time).
My quarrels with the series: I can forgive the fact they wouldn't show a gay couple having a tender/loving moment because of reasons when it comes to TV audacity at that time; they wouldn't give us that. But...it was awfully strange that they didn't gave us the down and dirty reality about what AIDS was and its effects. Even though Léo just got the virus he isn't offered any kind of treatment or medicine, and when he feels the first symptoms everything is just spoken, nothing's on screen; Aurélio's dying lover is just seen having deliriums, fever, tremblings, but no spots or KS signs. That was not what AIDS was about when alarming news were breaking out. We'd seen people becoming thinner and thinner, having spots, walking human corpses at one step of dying - and I mention this because a few years earlier the great singer/songwriter Cazuza (the series "theme song" was composed by him years earlier. He died in 1990, before the show release) showed his face and boldly told us that he had AIDS and everyone started to pay attention to a disease that was here ever since 1983 and no one cared. "O Portador" doesn't show the destruction, it only shows that it kills and everyone's susceptive to it. It educates but not that much; it's not didatic but it could and should have been. The prejudice factor was an important and destructive factor faced by the victims and it was downplayed here by having just one character being the loud voice to oppose the main character. That issue should have been explored more - the scene where Léo fights a doctor who isn't caring about the young boy is really intense and shows exactly how things rolled back then.
I won't say it's pointless to watch it now because there's some quality material in there, it reflects a period of time when HIV/AIDS was the end of the world and I'd like to think it helped plenty of people back in 1991, in testing themselves or finding ways to improve their health. It's relevant now to present a desperate time and how it was tough to deal with something like that. Besides the plot aspects, the whole show was well acted. Periard was excellent as a lead despite not playing the usual hero, he has some share of flaws; Lilia Cabral was amazing as an "antagonist"; Bloch was fascinating as the supportive friend of Léo; Ricardo Petráglia doesn't appear much but he was truly reliable as the doctor who survived the plane crash and reappears to help Léo with his mission. I just couldn't get this series out of my mind, it was that good. The only other time Globo dealt with the AIDS theme was in a recurring TV show but they managed to clear some things out and made it truly relevant to teen audiences back then. I'm not much of a fan of soap-opera or the way they make it here but this one felt special and I had to give it a try. It was special, crucial and exciting to watch. Despite some flaws, it can make you feel immersed and interested in it through it all. 9/10
Anyway, here's the story: businessman Léo (Jayme Periard) survives a plane crash, gets badly injured and somehow someone made a blood transfusion right at the plane crash site and later on he discovers he got AIDS. His mission from now on is to discover which passenger was the disease carrier; at the same time he deals with his ex-girlfriend and his associates at the firm, a couple (played by Jonas Bloch and Lilia Cabral), of whom he reveals his condition - the man becoming his loyal friend and the woman becoming a prejudiced person who fears having contact with Léo. I won't stick much to the story because it's better when you see it - even though I've got an edited version of it (they mention about a couple involved in the blood trafficking business but I never seen those people in the whole series). Léo tracks down all the survivors which includes womanizers of countless relations; Aurélio, a discreet gay man (nicely played by Edwin Luisi) whom we later find that his young lover is a terminal AIDS patient (and I still wonder who played that boy. The credits mention a woman but it's not the case. It was a very good actor who vanished from the screen); and other characters. Léo fights prejudice from the people who know but gets some help from his ex-girlfriend, a doctor (Othon Bastos) and others on the way.
The idea of using the device of a "detective story" mixed with the AIDS panic was interesting, good enough to attract viewers and discuss an important and neglected theme at the time. Before that, there was only lousy tragic movies that weren't truly informative about the disease and only presented morbid aspects. "O Portador" ("The Carrier") enlights people about ways of contraction, educates and informs people about the realities HIV positive people live and how it's not like an eternal damnation - even though for Léo and others it feels that way because back then it was a death sentence. Globo and its creators deserve credit for bringing the topic to millions of viewers. Not sure about its ratings back then, all I know is that it was never reprised (and they do repeat old shows in their channels every time).
My quarrels with the series: I can forgive the fact they wouldn't show a gay couple having a tender/loving moment because of reasons when it comes to TV audacity at that time; they wouldn't give us that. But...it was awfully strange that they didn't gave us the down and dirty reality about what AIDS was and its effects. Even though Léo just got the virus he isn't offered any kind of treatment or medicine, and when he feels the first symptoms everything is just spoken, nothing's on screen; Aurélio's dying lover is just seen having deliriums, fever, tremblings, but no spots or KS signs. That was not what AIDS was about when alarming news were breaking out. We'd seen people becoming thinner and thinner, having spots, walking human corpses at one step of dying - and I mention this because a few years earlier the great singer/songwriter Cazuza (the series "theme song" was composed by him years earlier. He died in 1990, before the show release) showed his face and boldly told us that he had AIDS and everyone started to pay attention to a disease that was here ever since 1983 and no one cared. "O Portador" doesn't show the destruction, it only shows that it kills and everyone's susceptive to it. It educates but not that much; it's not didatic but it could and should have been. The prejudice factor was an important and destructive factor faced by the victims and it was downplayed here by having just one character being the loud voice to oppose the main character. That issue should have been explored more - the scene where Léo fights a doctor who isn't caring about the young boy is really intense and shows exactly how things rolled back then.
I won't say it's pointless to watch it now because there's some quality material in there, it reflects a period of time when HIV/AIDS was the end of the world and I'd like to think it helped plenty of people back in 1991, in testing themselves or finding ways to improve their health. It's relevant now to present a desperate time and how it was tough to deal with something like that. Besides the plot aspects, the whole show was well acted. Periard was excellent as a lead despite not playing the usual hero, he has some share of flaws; Lilia Cabral was amazing as an "antagonist"; Bloch was fascinating as the supportive friend of Léo; Ricardo Petráglia doesn't appear much but he was truly reliable as the doctor who survived the plane crash and reappears to help Léo with his mission. I just couldn't get this series out of my mind, it was that good. The only other time Globo dealt with the AIDS theme was in a recurring TV show but they managed to clear some things out and made it truly relevant to teen audiences back then. I'm not much of a fan of soap-opera or the way they make it here but this one felt special and I had to give it a try. It was special, crucial and exciting to watch. Despite some flaws, it can make you feel immersed and interested in it through it all. 9/10
