Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho follows up his 2016 breakthrough Aquarius with Bacurau, one of the most hyperpolitical films in recent memory and one that transcends languages and borders with its potent universal message: Don’t mess with honest, hardworking people.
Co-written/directed with Aquarius production designer Juliano Dornelles and featuring much of that film’s cast, the new flick is set in the near future in Western Pernambuco (the state in the easternmost hump of South America). Dreamlike, introductory satellite imagery suggests the continent’s other coast is ablaze with volcanoes or wildfire, and it’s not much better in the titular town, where food and meager medical supplies have to be trucked in and the region is engaged in an ambiguous water war.
Shortly after Teresa (Bárbara Colen) returns home to Bacurau for her grandmother’s funeral, a bizarre series of events unfurls, during which the residents suddenly can’t find their town on internet maps, a UFO-like drone straight out of the 1950s shows up, and the already isolated community is further constricted by jammed cell phone signals and bullet holes that drain the water from the delivery truck’s tank.
Despite a somewhat clunky start, there’s sufficient mystery surrounding the water situation and enough quirky details, humor and sex/nudity to hold non-Brazilian viewers’ attention. And when much hated mayor Tony Jr. (Thardelly Lima) rides into the village — accompanied by a van adorned with video screens displaying corny photos and playing an even cornier campaign song — and dumps a truckload of battered books and a load of mostly expired food, shrugging off shouts from residents that he make water available, Bacurau’s true intentions start to show.
These political themes are compounded at the film’s midway point by the introduction of Udo Kier as the leader of a group of white English speakers, primarily gun-fanatic Americans, who receive unheard instructions via earpieces from an unknown source and have been promised they can kill the locals.
But as reformed gangster Pacote (Thomas Aquino) feels pushed to return to his murderous ways with help from impressively mulleted prodigal son Lunga (Silvero Pereira), Bacurau sets up a wild showdown between good and evil that mixes gruesome violence with stunning shots of nature, wordlessly suggesting what the proud townsfolk are fighting for.
It’s such an unusual setting and scenario that it’s easy to get sucked into the proceedings, but the film also moves remarkably well while feeling intensely culturally authentic. If you can get past the occasionally shocking brutality and carnage, a rewarding view awaits.
Now available to rent via grailmoviehouse.com
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