Examining the Debris with 7 PRISONERS Director Alexandre Moratto

A conversation about Netflix's Brazilian social realist thriller

Back in 2021, I had an idea for a piece that would take two films produced by my beloved filmmaker Ramin Bahrani — Alexandre Moratto’s 7 Prisoners and Alex Camilleri’s Luzzu (now available to stream on MUBI and rent elsewhere) — and write about how he was using his name to help the way for a new generation of global social realist filmmakers to emerge. Out of exhaustion then, I only managed to natch an interview with the former director. I always told myself I’d come back and finish the piece, but now I’m just surrendering in the name of easy content for the newsletter.

7 Prisoners, available for you to watch on Netflix now, should shoot to the top of your watch list. In just 94 brisk minutes, this thematically complex film moves with the efficiency of a thriller but resonates with the intricacies of a morality play. (If you’re interested in a full review, I did that for Decider out of its world premiere at the 2021 Venice Film Festival.)

This propulsively watchable drama centers around the young Brazilian boy Mateus (Christian Malheiros) who leaves his rural home to work in a São Paolo auto shop to financially support his family. What he finds there are conditions tantamount to modern slavery under the Fagin-esque owner Luca (Rodrigo Santoro of Love Actually and Lost fame). The only way for Mateus to beat Luca is to join him, seeing exploitation from the other side of the fence and learning how everyone answers to some merciless force in the market.

My resident Brazilian correspondent has informed me that we are between two major holidays in the country — St. George’s Day and May Day — so I figure this would be as good a time as any to release the tape. The conversation is pretty high-level and does not get as into plot specifics as many of my interviews do, so it should work for whether you want a primer for what to expect from your viewing or to go deeper into it afterward.

Ramin Bahrani and Alexandre Moratto behind the scenes of 7 Prisoners, 2021. © Aline Arruda / Netflix

It's more my job to take the two ends of the spectrum, then smash them together, and take a look at the debris.

Paid subscribers can read the conversation — but everyone should watch the movie on Netflix.