What happened when Shlomo was interegated?

i thought that this was done purposefully vague so as to give the film the honest perspective of a child. i think the movie did a nice job of not getting too involved with the political climate, outside of what Mauro observed. i might be wrong about this, but what I really enjoyed about the film.

I'm also completely ignorant of Brazilian politics but I really got the feeling that Shlomo sold out Mauro's father. Shlomo wasn't a very sympathetic character to me at the end.

I assumed that his father was killed by the government. A quick cruise of wikipedia brought me to this "by the end of the dictatorship there were at least 339 documented cases government-sponsored political assassinations or disappearances. Countless more were questioned, tortured or jailed".

I definitely would be interested in a Brazilian or should I say Brasilian perspective on this.

I don't think he negociated anything/anyone at all.

The naive part in me wants to believe that Scholomo was just "being asked some questions"- since he was seen talking to Italo,was in the university, and went to their house. And, "being asked some questions" probably involved some kind of torture/abuse (psychological most likely).

The people in the sinagogue probably "vouched" for him- saying that he worked there, was an upstanding citizen, etc - and mostly important, they (probably) showed they knew he had been arrested/was being questioned.

A lot of the people who were really involved with politics just went underground (a.k.a. "on vacations"). So, when they were arrested, the few people who knew they were really missing couldn't do much.

Now, how/why the "mom" came back...

1) They could have found her to be innocent. That is, she probably didn't say anything, and there were no proofs that she was actually involved with her husband's politics. I find this hard to believe (just by what I know about history). It's somewhat more likely if the parents had "just" been arrested(which is somewhat likely, since we don't know how long they had been in hiding).

2) She could have been exchanged for a kidnapped person. Subversive groups would kidnap an important person (a foreigner diplomat, for example), and this person would be freed if the government freed a number of political prisioners. But,in my knowledge, most of the freeed prisioners would go directly in an airplane, heavely escorted by military personel.

But don't quote me, and don't take my word for it. This period is full of nuances, and a lot of important documents haven't been opened yet (or were destroyed).

Shlomo wasn't in a position to negotiate anything - he knew nothing about Mauro's parents and Italo fled as soon as he was arrested. Presumably he was detained for enquiring after Mauro's parents and the authorities then realised he wasn't involved in politics and decided he was harmless. The mother may have been released because the authorities decided, rightly or wrongly, that she wasn't involved in her husband politics or that she was basically harmless. I'm no expert but I don't think the Brazilian military dictatorship was as murderous as those in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile or Argentina, so low-level dissidents were probably mostly allowed to go into exile and the apolitical like Shlomo were probably mostly left alone.