140. Bacurau; movie review

BACURAU
Cert 18
131 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong bloody violence, gore

Could a village in the middle of nowhere really be wiped off the map?
Maybe not in England where we have one of the densest populations on earth but in the United States, Australia, China, India, Russia or, in this case, Brazil?
And could the local population be used for experimentation without anyone knowing?
I guess it depends how many people are involved. If there are just 30 or 40 members of a closed community and phone and internet signal are tricky, who knows?
Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho's film is set in the fictional rural village of Bacurau which is mourning the death of a matriarch.
We are slowly introduced to an eccentric way of life with spiky characters with a sprinkling of flamboyance.
Bárbara Colen plays Teresa who has lived away for years but returns for his grandmother's funeral and ties up with an old flame (Thomas Aquino) who appears to be the community's decision-maker.
In saying that, a drink-swilled doctor (Sônia Braga) certainly has a mind of her own as does the local gangster (Silvero Pereira).
Anyway, something strange is happening - the water supply has been cut off and the local politician (Thardelly Lima) gets the blame for that but who has killed the people at a nearby farm.
Bacurau offers several slants including a firm dig at the corruption of Brazilian politics at the expense of the country's citizens.
But it also shows how a very disparate community can come together when under a common threat.
This certainly drew parallels with what is happening in the UK during the Coronavirus crisis.
It is a strange but alluring movie which has some professional actors but several people from the area in which it was made.
This gives it an authenticity and adds to its originality. I recommend it but warn that it requires a strong stomach to cope with its gory violence.

Reasons to watch: Unusual and intriguing
Reasons to avoid: Will be too strange for some

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: Yes
Overall rating: 8/10

Did you know? In 2015 around 6.2 million Brazilians lacked access to at least basic water. Meanwhile, 29 million people were without access to at least basic sanitation.

The final word. Kleber Mendonça Filho "We needed to be very honest with the representation of that kind of place, so we also used a lot of people from nearby villages. They understood the story that we were wanting to tell. It was like they knew that type of situation.” BFI

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