Behold "Bacurau"

Sometimes I wonder to myself, why do I watch all these obscure foreign art house films, half of which I don't really enjoy? Well, because once in a while, I end up stumbling across something really impactful and exciting, the kind of film that simply could not come out of Hollywood, or even the broader American film industry. Such a film is "Bacurau," a Brazilian feature from Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho, best known for social dramas "Neighboring Sounds" and "Aquarius." I watched both of those films out of a sense of obligation previously, and my reaction was middling on both. Now I'm very glad I did see them, as they provide a lot of context for "Bacurau."

The opening scene of "Bacurau" takes us from a starry expanse above the Earth, down to the tiny, northeastern Brazilian village of Bacurau. It's a remote place, part of Brazil's backcountry, where there's not much by way of infrastructure and supplies arrive via trucks. The townsfolk are in the middle of a standoff with a corrupt local official, Tony Jr. (Thardelly Lima) over access to the town's water supply. The town's matriarch has recently died, so many family members are visiting for the funeral, including Teresa (Bárbara Colen), who arrives with a suitcase stuffed with vaccines and medicine. She soon takes up with Pacote (Thomas Aquino), a local gangster figure. The town doctor, Domingas (Sonia Braga), shows up to the funeral drunk, and declares the dead woman was a whore.

At this point, I was mentally getting ready for another small scale human drama about life in a rural village, elevating the struggles of the poor inhabitants and shedding light on the political and social injustices that burden them. The Bacurau inhabitants are a colorful lot, including several criminals and prostitutes, who nobody seems to much care are criminals and prostitutes. The filmmakers make no attempt to hide or downplay the roughness of their lives, pointedly showing swarming flies and a town meeting where everyone divides up donated food, much of it expired. On the other hand, the film is said to take place in the near future, and everyone has a cell phone and internet access. In fact, one of the first indications that something is going wrong is that Bacurau disappears from satellite maps of the region.

Past this point, I want to warn of spoilers, because the experience of watching "Bacurau" is better the less you know about it. In fact, the movie does elevate the poor villagers and spotlight social injustices. However, it does so in a totally different way than I was expecting - and in a totally different way than Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho have ever done before. Though the film retains its ground level realism and very culturally specific lens, the plot takes a turn toward genre territory and never looks back. Strange things start happening around Bacurau - spooked animals, strangers lurking around, and villagers mysteriously turning up dead. And then Udo Kier shows up, and things start getting pretty wild.

I've seen this kind of film before, but the fun of "Bacurau" is that this telling of it is so specific to this region of Brazil and this particular set of circumstances. We don't get to really spend much time with the villagers or examine their lives in much depth, but there's such a wealth of detail in what we do see - the school, the little screening setup in the center of town, the various businesses, the beloved museum, and people's homes. We see who the leaders are, the way everyone is in each other's business, and the way everyone automatically lends a hand on a crisis.

On the flip side, the treatment of the film's villains is hilarious and absurd and I loved it. Sure, there's some tonal clash and some of the actors are a little iffy, but the absolute viciousness of the portrayal, and the richly deserved comeuppance they're served is amazing to see play out. There are a lot of films you could compare this to, but I think the closest is "Cabin in the Woods" for the sheer, giddy audacity and go-for-broke nature of the storytelling. Once it's revealed exactly what kind of film we're watching, everyone really commits to it.

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