Bacurau (2019) (Portuguese & English Language)- BFI London Film Festival 2019

Review

131min

Genre:     Crime, Drama, Thriller

Director:   Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho

Cast:       Bárbara Colen, Thomas Aquino, Sônia Braga…and more

Writers:   Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho

-Synopsis-

In the arid rural Northeast of Brazil, the residents of Bacurau begin to experience strange happenings after the death of the village’s elderly matriarch, only to be pushed into a bloody clash for survival with some unsavoury and exploitative foreign visitors, who quickly learn they picked the wrong town to mess with.

Over the course of the last decade Kleber Mendonça Filho has made his mark on Brazilian cinema with a couple of nuanced socially-conscious urban human dramas, lyrically reflecting a vibrant but changing country and its recent history with a tinge of melancholy. Now the Pernambuco writer/director abandons subtlety for righteous indignation and goes down a violent exploitation film path, focusing his lens on rural Brazil and teaming up with his former production designer and directorial debutant Juliano Dornelles to tell a near futurist politically reflective warning tale—delivering a genre-blending savaging of the socio-political state of modern Brazil and the West along the way.

Bárbara Colen stars as Bacurau native ‘Teresa’, returned to her remote rural home after the death of the village matriarch and her grandmother, only to find things starting to fall apart for the community shepherded by ‘Pacote’ (Thomas Aquino) and town doctor ‘Domingas’ (Sônia Braga), unexpectedly ushering in a group of malevolent foreign Westerners led by the mysterious ‘Michael’ (Udo Kier)—a macabre hunting party looking for ‘the most dangerous game’. But these unsavoury invaders soon find out they bit off more than they can chew when the abandoned townspeople put aside resentments and bring back former exiles to defend theirs, setting up a bloody battle of egos and wills where winners take all.

Clearly a modern parable with a genre film structure and B movie tendencies, at first and last glance ‘Bacurau’ certainly looks and feels every inch the neo-western. But Mendonça Filho and Dornelles begin this story like a typical Brazilian country drama or a TV novela with the character dynamics to match, taking their time to build the tension as the film grows progressively more ominous and weird, crossing into exploitation film territory and black humour while heading towards a gloriously ultra-violent conclusion so brutal and graphic it becomes deliberately comical, even reaching Tarantino levels.

The film’s mood, style and energy as well as its credentials as a pseudo western are supplemented by the score from Mateus Alves and Tomaz Alves Souza, who combine traditional rural Brazilian tones with their pulsating and occasionally jarring modern synth compositions, mixing it all with a soundtrack which includes tracks from legendary Brazilian songstress Gal Costa and other celebrated folk artists from the country like Sergio Ricardo and Geraldo Vandré. And it’s the decision to use this vibrant soundscape sparingly and let the drama breathe in uncomfortable silence which helps to heighten the effect of the music when it does indeed come.

What really sets this visceral genre-bending human drama apart though is undoubtedly its sharp socio-political overtones, as Mendonça Filho and Dornelles skewer the corrupt and capitalistic tendencies which have persisted through decades of Brazilian governments of every kind—from military dictatorships to democracy and pseudo socialism—using the violence of power struggles to paint a blood-soaked metaphor for the selling of the country’s land, people and its very soul to feed the globalist machine. They also take the opportunity to level a shot at general social exploitation and objectification, while taking aim at the USA through some good old-fashioned American racism and the ugly face of their pervasive gun culture.

Ultimately for some ‘Bacurau’ may end up being defined by its more extreme tendencies, particularly the ominous tone it sets and the violence in which it revels, building up to an absurdly graphic conclusion and over-the-top shootout which combines classic western themes with traces of extreme Asian cinema—as perfected by directors like Quentin Tarantino and Takashi Miike. All of which when combined with the sex and nudity on show means the film earns its 18 UK rating.

But Mendonça Filho and Dornelles also leverage their experience with character dramas and make good use of an eclectic cast to insert a human story amongst the mayhem. Creating a clash of cultures between the brash foreign westerners with contempt for their prey and its culture led by Udo Kier at his creepy stoic best, versus the isolated and forsaken locals with Brazilian screen legend and acting grande dame Sônia Braga in fierce form as the village’s fiery doctor, while younger star Thomas Aquino proves its soul and Bárbara Colen its heart—whose grandmother’s death is the catalyst for the story and the start of the town’s descent into amoral carnage, serving as a metaphor for the consequences of losing tradition and forsaking of history.

The result of all their toil is a very specific and brutal but mesmerising and completely engrossing cinematic picture of a country in flux and a culture in crisis. Boldly and fearlessly expressed through the prism of a human drama disguised as an exploitation film with black comedy credentials and seasoned with plenty of righteous indignation, quenching a thirst for violence with some blood-soaked satisfaction and a strong dose of perverse street justice.

The Bottom Line…

Kleber Mendonça Filho’s first foray into genre filmmaking goes deep and doesn’t flinch, yielding not only a dark and sharply satirical genre-bending parable and socio-political savaging of modern Brazil and the West, but also a potentially fruitful directorial partnership with Juliano Dornelles which we look forward to watching develop. Once again proving that if you want daring and inventive storytelling that breaks the rules but still manages to reflect our world, foreign language film and indie cinema is where it’s at.

‘Bacurau’ is out on the 13th of March 2020 in UK cinemas.

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