Daniel Rezende on MONICA AND FRIENDS – BONDS “My only reason for creating rules is to break them”

Did you think you had seen enough movies about a group of children solving crime together? Wait until you see MONICA AND FRIENDS – BONDS: more colourful than a rocket ice cream, with children pointing out “being annoying” as their greatest quality. The film takes you to a Brazilian neighbourhood unlike any you’ve ever seen before. And the victim of the kidnapping they solve together is a green (!) dog. After the disappearance of his dog Fluffy, Cebolinha (Jimmy Five) and his best friends Monica, Cascão (Smudge), and Magali need to prepare one of their master plans.

Daniel Rezende, who’s made a career as editor of renowned films (CIDADE DE DEUS, THE TREE OF LIFE, MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, and more) for his first feature as a director adapted a 60-year-old series of comic books by Mauricio de Sousa, which are immensely popular in Brazil. You can watch the trailer here.

How popular exactly?

Daniel Rezende: ‘Monica and Friends’ is a true phenomenon in Brazil; their status could be compared to the most famous Disney characters. Among our 200 million inhabitants, every Brazilian knows Monica and her friends. The film was released in Brazil one year ago, when the competition with blockbusters was very strong. Considering the circumstances, we did pretty well. In this crazy country where only few people would go to see Brazilian characters starring in a local production, I’m really proud of the result. Mauricio de Sousa’s books are also successful in Mexico, Japan, etc. but not to the same extent as here.

It couldn’t have been easy to bring such popular characters to life in an appropriate way.

Rezende: Those figures have a 60-year-long history and yet they were never adapted for the big screen. Their transformation into live action characters was a difficult task. How to create a kid with only five hairs on his head, one that never takes a shower, one girl that is so strong she can lift a car… And in the books they are only seven years old!

After all these efforts, it would be a shame to use those characters only once in a movie.

Rezende: The sequel has been shot already. In the first film, we created this special, slightly nostalgic universe, in the second one we delve deeper into those characters, we deepen their emotions, and I swear it will make you cry at least five times. Everything you might not find in this film, hopefully you will find in the second one.

It was not only the characters you had to transmit, but even an entire comic book universe. When watching this film, the first thing you notice is colours, colours, and more colours.

Rezende: The looks of the characters created by Mauricio de Sousa is iconic, always wearing the same clothes in primary colours. He has a very simple style of drawing: houses, cars, the entire universe is brought back to clean and simple geometrical forms. The vivid colours of the characters in the first part of the movie are always juxtaposed with the background. The more vivid they are, the more the colours in the background had to be lowered. The red, green, orange, and yellow in the kids’ clothing, and the blue stuffed rabbit, had to stand out in every image.

But then they evolve throughout the movie?

Rezende: The story is divided into three sections, starting in that colourful neighbourhood, but by the time they get into the forest, the background turns green and brown. Then in the villain’s house, there is only brown and black. And we close the circle in the end, going back to the initial setting.

This lovely, quiet neighbourhood for me was a surprising location.

Rezende: Nothing in this film was created in a studio, everything was shot on location. This neighbourhood, created by Mauricio de Sousa in the fifties, was re-created piece by piece, by putting various elements from different places together. The main location we found in a countryside resort, owned by Dutch immigrants. But finally, we combined elements from six different locations to create that one place. We wanted the film to look timeless. We were very cautious not to give away any information about the specific moment in time: no TV’s, no cell phones… The art department did a great job on a minimum budget. Everything had to be repainted and redecorated. Even the cars, whether they were old or new, needed to have the kind of shape like Mauricio de Sousa would have been drawing them.

Not only your art department was challenged, but also your make-up crew.

Rezende: We tried to keep the haircuts close to the original characters, which wasn’t easy. Originally, Smudge only has hair on top of his head, and Jimmy Five only has five hairs; he was the hardest character to mould. The author Mauricio de Sousa served as my compass and barometer. If his eyes were shining, we were doing it right. If they weren’t shining, we had to work on it a little bit more.

About Jimmy Five, it is said that his main quality is to annoy people.

Rezende: Jimmy Five, originally named Cebolinha (which means “little onion”) is an arrogant boy, he believes he’s so smart, he wants to be the king of the street (for which he has to defeat Monica and steal her stuffed rabbit). How to make the audience sympathize with him? What we emphasized is how Cebolinha actually loves Monica. As he doesn’t know any other way to show this, he keeps bullying her. That is what boys and girls always do. But what is really important: Cebolinha acknowledges his flaw – “I annoy people” – and turns it into a quality. For a kid this is something very hard to do. That is why we sympathize with him, regardless of his terrible habits.

Boys and girls mix together really well in this film.

Rezende: That was no coincidence, we worked hard on balancing the script. The thing is: the comic books are called ‘Monica and Friends’ while in our story Jimmy Five is the protagonist. Making a boy the protagonist in what initially was a girl’s story is a tricky thing to do. We struggled even more with Magali and Smudge, as usually Monica and Jimmy Five are drawing all the attention to them. Balancing four characters is much more difficult than balancing two.

The grown-ups are acting pretty much as normal parents, honestly concerned about their children.

Rezende: Even the villain I tried to humanize somehow, explaining the reasons why he does what he does. I don’t believe in good boys versus evil villains. All of us are somehow good and bad. The one and only truth in this world is the paradox.

How was the energy level with four young actors on the set? Was it like high energy 24/7?

Rezende: Almost. Kevin Vechiatto, playing Jimmy Five, is an experienced actor who did already several productions. The other three had never acted before. Then I remembered how Fernando Meirelles – from whom I learned a lot – worked on CIDADE DE DEUS. He never gave the young actors a script. Neither did I. Together with a coach, they rehearsed the scenes entirely through improvisation, with me conducting them towards the required lines. I told the crew: every single person in our team is here for the kids. “They are not here for us; we are here for them.” At the beginning and end of each day, we did a group hug, which was super important. Sometimes, when one kid was missing, the next day we did two hugs to compensate. Shooting a movie with kids, dogs, forests, and night shoots is like the most challenging combination, but it felt really good. The entire crew grew up with these comic books, and now they were putting all their love into the adaptation. You can watch the trailer here.

You also had some interesting animal characters on the set, like Fluffy the green dog.

Rezende: Keeping the green dog or not was a crucial question! You know, whether as an editor or director, I love to create rules only to break them. If I can’t break them, I don’t feel like having been creative. My number one rule for this film was: even if this movie is based on a comic book, we will only allow things to happen that can happen in real life… and then I allow a green dog on screen. The funny thing about Fluffy in the comic books is that you can’t tell his head from his tail, you never know which side you are looking at. For this role, we bought two puppies and had them trained from birth.

Did you also train the blue rabbit?

Rezende: We had at least five puppets. I’ll show you one… it is a bit dirty and worn-out, but it is one of the originals. If traveling to festivals was allowed in these crazy times, I’d take this puppet with me. I would have loved to see the reactions from audiences around the world, like in Czech Republic. I would have loved to meet the audience in the Zlin Film Festival, but unfortunately it can’t happen.

This film celebrates a specific kind of friendship, the one you had as a kid, which you might never find again once you grow up.

Rezende: That is probably the reason why Monica and Friends is so successful, even today. Their stories celebrate the beauty of childhood, and the naivety that you lose when growing up. In the sequel, we go deeper into the topic of friendship, offering children a concept to build upon in their own lives. I watched the final cut last night, and I’m still excited about it.