Verdict
Summary
Overlong at 131 minutes, but guaranteed to make you nervous as you watch it, Bacurau is a slice of something familiar in unusual clothes, as it features a cast of Brazilian actors in the lead roles, focusing on the quaintness of village life, complete with whoring, singing, capoeira, and nude gardening.
Plot:
After the death of her grandmother, Teresa comes home to her matriarchal village in a near-future Brazil to find a succession of sinister events that mobilizes all of its residents.
Review:
The matriarch of a small village in Brazil called Bacurau dies, which seems to be the catalyst for a series of horrendous events for the humble village. The matriarch’s granddaughter Teresa (Barbara Colen) has brought enough medicine and vaccines to last the village awhile, but when the town is erased from GPS maps and their weekly water supply truck comes back riddled with bullet holes, the villagers realize that something is amiss. One villager sees a UFO (straight up flying saucer deal) on his way back to the village with food supplies, and soon after, villagers on the outskirts (including a child) are found shot to death in their car and in their homes, and two tourists with flashy motorcycle gear pass through on dirt bikes, which is yet another harbinger of bad things to come for the town of Bacurau. We learn that the motorcyclists are scouts for a team of ruthless and blood-lusty mercenaries (led by Udo Kier with his seen-too-much eyes) who’ve been hired to kill the entire village one by one. As the mercenaries systematically hunt down the villagers (including children), the town of Bacurau gets wise real quick and hearkens back to their roots of rebelling against authoritarian rule and they fight back, turning the tables against their hunters.
Overlong at 131 minutes, but guaranteed to make you nervous as you watch it, Bacurau is a slice of something familiar in unusual clothes, as it features a cast of Brazilian actors in the lead roles, focusing on the quaintness of village life, complete with whoring, singing, capoeira, and nude gardening. It gets to feel like a Rambo movie towards the end as the villagers pull out their machetes and traps to kill off the sick mercenaries. It’s definitely not for everyone’s tastes, and it was a bit much for my pallet, but I appreciated it for presenting it in a fresh way. From filmmakers Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles.
Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray of Bacurau comes with a bunch of bonus features, including deleted scenes, interviews, a booklet with an essay, and more.
