Bacurau

Bacurau
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Kleber Mendonça Filho Juliano Dornelles
Written by	Kleber Mendonça Filho Juliano Dornelles
Produced by	Emilie Lesclaux Saïd Ben Saïd Michel Merkt
Starring	Sônia Braga Udo Kier Bárbara Colen Thomas Aquino Silvero Pereira Karine Teles
Cinematography	Pedro Sotero
Edited by	Eduardo Serrano
Music by	Mateus Alves Tomaz Alves Souza
Production companies	CinemaScópio Produções SBS Productions Globo Filmes Símio Filmes Arte France Cinema Canal Brasil Telecine
Distributed by	Vitrine Filmes (Brazil) SBS Distribution (France)
Release dates	15 May 2019 (2019-05-15) (Cannes) 29 August 2019 (2019-08-29) (Brazil) 25 September 2019 (2019-09-25) (France)
Running time	132 minutes
Countries	Brazil France
Languages	Portuguese English
Budget	$1.43 million[1]
Box office	$3.5 million[2]

Bacurau (Portuguese for 'nightjar') is a 2019 Weird Western film^[3] written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles.^[4] It stars Sônia Braga, Udo Kier, Bárbara Colen, Thomas Aquino, Silvero Pereira, and Karine Teles. The film, a co-production between Brazil and France,^[5][6] revolves around Bacurau, a fictional small town in the Brazilian sertão that is beset by strange happenings following the death of its matriarch, Carmelita (Lia de Itamaracá), at the age of 94.^[7][8] The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival,^[9] and won the Jury Prize.^[10][11]

Plot[]

In the near future, the people of Bacurau, an impoverished, rural settlement in the fictional municipality of Serra Verde, in western Pernambuco, gather for the funeral of Carmelita, an elderly woman seen as the matriarch of the community. Her granddaughter Teresa (Bárbara Colen), now a young woman, returns to town after many years for the occasion, as well as to deliver some medicine to the town. At first, there is much unrest as one of the townspeople largely disrespects her grandmother, and causes a scene at her arrival before she is quelled by the other townspeople, but this is covered in the feeling of rejoice as many are delighted to see her return. Following this, she and the remaining villagers are unnerved by a sequence of strange occurrences that follow the burial: including telephone signals going down, the town unexplainably disappearing off of maps and GPS, sightings of UFO-shaped drones and an unnamed couple from Rio de Janeiro passing through town on motorcycles.

There is an ongoing dispute over water rights from the local river, with water being dammed upstream in a corruption scheme which the mayor of Serra Verde, Tony Junior (Thardelly Lima), is the major driving force behind. During his re-election campaign, he visits Bacurau in an attempt to gain its residents' sympathy and secure their votes with old food and run down books. The hatred from the citizens of Bacurau towards Tony Junior is clear, as all the citizens attempt to hide for his arrival. Tony Junior appears to be a wealthy looking man while the citizens of Bacurau have to wait for a water truck to get water for the community. Later in the movie the water is seen flowing out of the truck as a result of multiple bullet holes that have penetrated the tank.

When a horse stampede suddenly appears in town, two local men are sent to investigate the nearby farm from where they presumably escaped and find the family that owned it murdered. As they attempt to leave the property, they are executed by the couple on the motorbikes who had previously acted friendly towards the town people of Bacurau, while in fact planting a device that it is suggested prevents their use of cell phones and internet.

This couple rendezvous with a group of mostly-American foreigners led by Michael (Udo Kier). The couple is mocked for being more white than the locals, but still not "white” enough. Then they are chastised for killing the two men, as killing two people will deprive the foreigners of two chances to score "points", hinting at how the foreigners think of the natives as subhuman. After receiving unheard instructions through earpieces, the foreigners execute the motorbike couple and argue over who did the killing and is entitled to the points, putting on full display the ruthlessness of the foreigners.

As the death toll rises, Pacote (Thomás Aquino), Teresa's former lover, deduces the town is under attack. This motivates him to seek out Lunga (Silvero Pereira), a fugitive who has received support and protection from the people of Bacurau as he evades law enforcement and whom Pacote ultimately convinces Lunga to join his efforts in fighting back against the threat in front of them. The townsfolk begin arming themselves and prepare to defend their town with all their heart. As the town people dig up a weapons cache, one of the Americans kills a nine-year-old boy on the edge of town. Then they cut electricity to the town to cause a panic.

The following morning, as the Americans go hunting, they are gradually overpowered and killed by the locals, with the exception of Michael (Udo Kier), who ends up captured. During the battle one of the Americans enters the museum in the center of the town and takes a relic on display. He believes he is superior and that their culture is worthless. What he fails to realize is that the newspaper articles and artifacts in the museum portray revolutions that the people of Bacurau have won against similar colonizers. They are not weak and docile like the Americans think they are, a fatal mistake. He only begins to realize that they might not be so easy to kill when he sees that all the weapons are missing, however still jokes about how outdated they are. The people of Bacurau unite against the Americans and they are very successful in doing so. Soon after the battle, Tony Junior, already persona non grata in Bacurau, comes to town to collect the Americans in a plush minibus, but then tries to deny knowing them. The captured Michael yells at him, making clear that they did have prior arrangements. The mayor is sent away to die in the desert, half-naked and tied up to a donkey, while Michael is buried alive in an underground cell while shouting that "this is only the beginning".

Cast[]

• Sônia Braga as Domingas
• Udo Kier as Michael
• Bárbara Colen as Teresa
• Thomás Aquino as Pacote / Acácio
• Silvero Pereira as Lunga
• Thardelly Lima as Tony Jr.
• Rubens Santos as Erivaldo
• Wilson Rabelo as Plínio
• Carlos Francisco as Damiano
• Luciana Souza as Isa
• Karine Teles as Foreigner
• Julia Marie Peterson as Julia

Production[]

Filming[]

Bacurau was filmed in the village of Barra in the municipality of Parelhas and in the rural area of the municipality of Acari, at the Sertão do Seridó region, in Rio Grande do Norte.^[12] The film crew visited over 20 cities in the Northeast country side to find the right filming location.^[13]

Cinematographers Pedro Sotero and Kleber Mendonça worked on the film alongside the production designer, Juliano Dornelles. They have worked on other films together as well including Neighboring Sounds (2012) and Aquarius (2016).^[14]

The cinematographer used a Panavision Anamorphic C-series lenses along with a 4:3 digital sensor for the compact and a reliable ARRI Alexa Mini.^[13] This stylistic choice came at an expense however, with the specific lenses not being sold in Brazil, the crew had to import them from both the United States and France. The end result, however, was both unique and in the opinion of the directors "They [help] create this tension between a very Brazilian film and a certain distortion that you associate with classic American films. I think we were very lucky to make the film exactly the way we wanted it to make."^[15] The crew shot 12 hour days for 8 weeks.^[13]

A self proclaimed cinephile, Kleber Mendonça Filho stated in an interview that the cinematographers for the film drew inspiration from several sources, including both 70's American western style films and Italian westerns from the 1960's.^[15]

Bacurau departed from several cinematographic norms during its production. Among these include the use of zooms and diopters which struck many cinephiles as somewhat of a call back to older filming techniques. Another stylistic departure from what many consider to be standard in the filming industry was the lack of a steady camera on set, with the directors opting to use tracks instead: "I have nothing against it; it's an interesting tool. But for this film, we wanted to move the camera using only tracks. By the end of the shoot, the gaffer said we had laid down 1,300 meters of tracks for this film, in eight and a half weeks' shoot."^[15]

Reception[]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Bacurau holds an approval rating of 93% based on 165 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Formally thrilling and narratively daring, Bacurau draws on modern Brazilian sociopolitical concerns to deliver a hard-hitting, genre-blurring drama."^[16] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "Universal acclaim".^[17]

Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail gave Bacurau a favorable review, saying it was a "fiery anti-colonialism polemic with so much on its mind that you’ll likely come out of it feeling as dazed as the titular village’s people,"^[18] while Monica Castillo of RogerEbert.com praised its "twists and turns."^[19] Additionally, Bacurau received the 'critic's pick' of The New York TImes in March 2020, and was described as "engimatic, exhilarating, and otherworldly".^[20] David Friend of The Canadian Press highlighted Udo Kier's performance saying it was "one of his best villainous roles."^[21]

Release[]

It was released by Vitrine Filmes in Brazil and SBS Distribution in France. Its North American release was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the distributor Kino-Lorber to seek alternate means. It created a "virtual cinema" distribution model in which it partnered with some 150 independent theaters in North America. The first run of the film streams in an exclusive limited release window through the theaters' websites. Kino-Lorber shares the revenues with the theaters.^[7]

References[]

External links[]

• Bacurau at IMDb