Bacurau (2019)

Directed by: Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho | 130 minutes | adventure, horror | Actors: Bárbara Colen, Thomas Aquino, Silvero Pereira, Thardelly Lima, Rubens Santos, Wilson Rabelo, Carlos Francisco, Luciana Souza, Karine Teles, Antonio Saboia, Sônia Braga, Udo Kier, Buda Lira, Clebia Sousa, Danny Barbosa, Edilson Silva, Eduarda Samara, Fabíola Lipero

You know you’re watching a classic when a movie sends you into the woods, leaving you hopelessly lost, and yet enjoying every minute you spend wandering in a world that begs endless questions and is populated with characters who are both attract as well as repel. Immediately during the opening titles, ‘Bacurau’ (2020) already leads you astray with an image of space that slowly shifts to a view of the earth. This opening scene is accompanied by a relaxed Brazilian song that is occasionally interrupted by some sort of metallic interference; as if an outside threat threatens the geniality of our planet. Then we zoom in on the sertão, an area in the northeast of Brazil; for a change, not on the US or Europe, but on an anonymous piece of earth. And so the fictional hamlet of ‘Bacurau’ in the middle of a dusty wilderness suddenly becomes the center of our world.

After this sci-fi-esque opening, we see a truck slaloming down a road trying to avoid coffins. As if we suddenly ended up in a George A. Romero horror film. Where is this going? What follows is a film reminiscent of an ethnographic documentary laced with sci-fi, western and 70s revenge movie ingredients. Genre reviews that are often quickly brought down: the ghostly coffins have simply fallen from a truck, and the flying saucer keeping an eye on the villagers of Bacurau turns out to be a drone.

According to the makers Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, ‘Bacurau’ arose from the desire to bring this poor and remote area to the attention of the metropolitan public. There is a clichéd image of the inhabitants of the sertão as comical, simple and vulnerable souls. Mendonça Filho and Dornelles give a twist to this stereotype and let the residents stand up for themselves and take horrific revenge on the people who look down on them and think they can abuse them.

It is indeed a motley crew of characters that populate Bacurau, such as the legendary crook Pacote, whose Best Of of his assassinations can be seen on a large video screen, and Lunga, an extravagant guerrilla fighter who hides in the wilderness and fights over the supply of drinking water. We get only snippets of their history, as if we were momentary spectators of a history much bigger than this moment. The village of Bacurau is a magically realistic place, an amalgam of identities that we never quite get to grips with. Is it an ordinary village or a haven for outsiders; a commune of birds of paradise and criminals? In any case, ‘Bacurau’ is a wonderfully exciting film with a political undertone that can be filled in in different ways that will continue to resound in your head long after the credits.