Bacurau
**This is one of the few times I will put a financial plug out for a film, but if you rent Bacurau through Kino Now, half of the rental price will go towards supporting the local independent theatre of your choice during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is how I watched it, and the proceeds for my rental went towards Atlanta’s Plaza Theatre.**
Bacurau is the type of village we should all wish to live in. I’m not referring to the poverty or political corruption, but the community. When the film opens, a local girl (Teresa, played by Bárbara Colen) is returning home with the daily water delivery, and a funeral for her grandmother is taking place. The entire village has come to pay respects, although one person- the doctor (Domingas, played by Sônia Braga)- cannot help but yell about how, when she dies, not nearly as many people will be there for her funeral. The village, rather than chastising her, understands- they were longtime friends, and she is drunk. This is not exactly the type of scene to open a movie that turns, essentially, into a “Seven Samurai” riff, but it’s important for us to see what the people who will be invading Bacurau are up against.
Writers and directors Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles have not structured this like a conventional genre film, and even when the action really begins in the third act, it doesn’t follow the standards you may be used to when it comes to films like this. That is one of its strengths. I mentioned “Seven Samurai,” but it’s not so much about the town looking for outside help so much as it is the town being set upon by individuals who would just as soon see it wiped off the map, or- at least- controlled. The outside forces include the local mayor, Tony Junior (Thardelly Lima), and a German man of means (played by Udo Kier), who has a group with him intent of killing the citizens of Bacurau. The why is never fully explored, and really, we don’t really need to know- it’s an outside force threatening people who would just as soon be left alone, and have carved a life out for themselves, even if it’s not a prosperous one. By the end, you want to see the village victorious. That is all that matters.
“Bacurau” does not really feel like any type of Western you might be used to, but it definitely plays with the tropes of the genre, with caskets being brought in for the dead, a little museum with the blood on the walls remaining to help tell the history of the town, and even a brothel that pops up, and- at one point- we see a line of men from the town waiting outside, while seeing a prostitute on the inside applying her trade. They get their supplies brought in from the outside, and even have decent relations with the local criminal element, which offers protection because of a connection to the people. Even if you struggle to get in to the narrative, the sense of reality established by this film is wonderful to get lost in. We see an old teacher trying to teach his students to find “Bacurau” on a map; one of the things about the film is that it shows Bacurau as being so small so it does not show up on a map, which is part of the “why” for why somebody like Kier’s Michael would want to wipe them out. We see kids playing. We see how they react to Tony Junior and his “gifts” for the town (his entrance into town is one of my favorite scenes in the movie). And we see how tragedy brings this town together.
The way Filho and Dornelles build up to the plot against Bacurau is methodically, starting with a shot up water tanker and a couple of motorcycle riders just passing through town, building to a sequence you think you’ll know what will happen during, but believe me when I say, you’ll get something unexpected, and even more enjoyable. The film has a purpose beyond genre thrills- it’s about celebrating the people who make up a community, and the ties that bind that community together. We see that life matters to these individuals, who don’t have much else, and the lives of their fellow man or woman matter a great deal. That ending is a crowdpleaser, as is the movie on the whole.
