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RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 17 (Reuters) Brazil's hugely popular television soap operas usually deal with tear-filled romance. But the violence engulfing the country has upstaged the melodrama and taken one ''telenovela'' to the top of the ratings.
''Vidas Opostas'' (Opposite Lives) is a hit with residents of Rio de Janeiro, where it is set, and around the country, despite complaints that people are weary of the real-life bloodshed and gory newscasts.
''We are showing things as they are in Rio -- slums, drug traffickers, corrupt cops, rotten politicians, and common people caught in the middle of all that,'' director Alexandre Avancini said.
The prime-time telenovela on the Rede Record network, shot partly in a real slum, has beat leading network Globo in the ratings several times when pitted against big league soccer games -- an undeniable sign of popularity in Brazil.
''We are glad that we are encouraging this discussion on violence. The Brazilian TV dramaturgy has been very slow in absorbing reality,'' Avancini said.
A love story is not missing. ''Vidas Opostas'' is the story of a young millionaire heir who loves a girl who lives in a slum, or favela. The favela is controlled by a drug gang that is in the middle of a turf war with a rival group, which has the backing of a corrupt cop, a typical scenario in many of Rio's 600-plus shantytowns.
Many scenes are borrowed from daily life, like a shootout in a tunnel full of cars, with panicked drivers abandoning their cars and running for cover.
In another, a rival gang invades a slum in a convoy of cars, their machine guns and rifles spitting fire in all directions, making slum-dwellers drop to the floors of their shacks. In a police raid that follows, an officer shoots an innocent man and plants a gun in his dead hand.
''I think recreating this reality on TV could help to have a healthy debate on violence, help people understand how normal slum residents live and suffer. This realism is better than watching some Hollywood action movie,'' said Ignacio Cano, a sociologist and expert on Rio violence.
Avancini said feedback from the audience showed an overwhelming majority of viewers liked the idea of having a realistic picture of Rio's life.
The series, which runs to 210 episodes through to July, attracts a lot of male viewers because of the ''not-so-melodramatic'' twist, he said.
''The general feedback is that Brazilians are ready to see the reality and to discuss it, that the audience has matured.'' He denied the studio was exploiting a hot topic to boost ratings and brushed off criticism of creating ''gangster hype''.
''These are chronicles, stuff that happens, an X-ray of the day-to-day life. The intention is to show it, not exploit it.
And we are being very careful to show that the traffickers are the villains and the people suffer because of them.'' In an attempt to match its rival's success, Globo borrowed a shocking scene from real life for its own soap opera, in which a character is killed in a bus torched by a gang.
It is based on homicides that occurred in December during a wave of gang attacks. Nine passengers were burnt to death.
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