巴克劳

极为奇特的电影，总体情节类似《狩猎》，但比后者多了文化视角。为了突出这一点，影片不惜长篇铺陈，前半部分几乎让人误以为是一部伦理片，后面才急转几下。

无论在现实，还是影视作品中，南美似乎都没有太多存在感。个人印象里，南美人既没有英美人源自清教的理智，也没有中国人基于现世的克制，而是很本能的活着，在社会层面也是一盘散沙，属于全球时代的掉队者。影片也几乎如此展示。令人咋舌的性开放程度，男女共浴、裸身、卖淫、滥交。对暴力习以为常，甚至崇拜刺客。政治上毫无希望，政客兼恶霸，官民毫无信任。生活水准极不协调，有发达的互联网，衣食住行却像温饱水平。

与之相对的则是截然不同的美式文化。目标明确，分工清楚，组织有序，效率至上。物质现代化程度与精神一致，各种先进武器、通讯设备加无人机。在了解其意图之前，美国小分队给人的感觉是在替政府执行国家任务。

然而，现代化的美国人却带着极为野蛮的目的。而面对生存威胁，南美人的散漫率性则变成了勇气和战斗力，集体的组织性和效率也飙升。这大概正是这类文化的神奇之处，迫使轻视它的人不得不重新认识。

看完也是一头雾水，看了影评，说什么政治隐喻，抱歉，我完全看不出来。前十五分钟不错，我以为电影主要讲述巴西一个叫巴克劳的地方的故事，结果突然出现个飞碟，这个跳戏啊，然后飞碟原来是无人机...还有那些人用的手机是透明手机。就有人说什么空间断层，什么时间穿越?什么鬼? 那个巴西女摩托车手放了一个巨大的芯片样的窃听器在小店里，然后就再也没有出现了? 一星给前15分钟外加各种生殖器。葬礼时的那首合唱灵歌和后面的血浆。 那些杀手不是雇佣兵，都只是普通人，没有专业的军事训练，所以被反杀。这些人杀人得积分，然后说是任务?什么任务?那么高科技的无人机和手机，还强行设定说是只能使用老式枪械?比如左轮手枪，汤普森机枪和带着巨大消音器的狙击步枪? 那个杀手头头为什么要吞枪自杀然后就就被老农民俘虏了?谁通过耳机指挥杀手开会时要杀死巴西杀手?(实际身份是助理法官)其他人有超市人事助理，还有州监狱惩戒官，他们还说在文件上他们不在巴克劳。 在市长被抓住时，市长带的人有一个去偷偷去开车门了，然后就市长直接被流放到仙人掌地里了? 那个本地英雄在巴西各地暗杀，所以当地人尊敬他，保护他不告密。因为后面有个新闻报道说最后的反政府武装被消灭在巴克劳。我觉得其实这些村民其实就是那些反政府武装分子及其后代，再这隐居。 棺材是杀手们叫的，所以他们通话时说车来晚了。 还有，那个发过精神病的老女医生最后走回来，那个妓女去迎接她，然后俩人嘴对嘴的亲嘴哦。

好多个巴克劳人吃花椒的镜头。我感觉是一种毒品吧，效果比那个市长给的强力太多了

又是一位戛纳的宠儿导演，小克莱伯·门多萨（Kleber Mendonça Filho）至今为止三部长片有两部入围过主竞赛，继两年前的《水瓶座》铩羽而归后，今年这部新作《巴克劳》出其不意地拿到评审团奖，与《悲惨世界》共同分享此项殊荣。令人吃惊的是，门多萨导演基本放弃了前两部作品里旗帜鲜明的现实主义纪录风格，竟大胆转向西部片混合虐杀类型片，这是否跟另一位导演共同合作的结果不得而知。不过可以看出的是这种充斥血浆暴力的尝试在这个题材上看来没太大突破，更变相地削弱了这个好题材的批判力度。

其实这部类型片与之前两部作品一样，同样可归类为社区题材电影，从《舍间声响》里的住宅小区到《水瓶座》里钉子户女主角的独立别墅，再到这部作品里的巴克劳乡村，都有着主人公（们）誓死保卫家园不为外敌入侵的共通母题。导演的各类作者标签依然清晰可见，摄影机在建筑物之间游弋，来源不明的声音与画外音渲染不安的气氛，以及得心应手的变焦镜头突出关键人物或物件。前半段关于这个与世隔绝的村庄的描绘相当吸引人，包括村民的组成来历、老人的葬礼，以及他们与新任市长的对峙， 都为这个极具现实批判意味的故事埋下了丰富的隐喻细节。

然而，没想到后半段的类型化尝试极速扭转了前面的细心铺垫，朝着取悦大众的噱头情节螺旋式下坠。杀人组织成员和凶残头目的刻画充斥着好莱坞式的陈词滥调和愚不可及，尽管试图引入纳粹以反证这种虐杀行为的丑陋，却只能沦为枯燥的平面化设计，远远无法企及冯提尔去年一部无差别杀戮作品《此房是我造》的哲学深度。最后一段杀戮高潮场景深受黑泽明《七武士》和昆汀解构手法的影响，令观众享受到感官刺激之余，却难以留下更多关于抗争抵御文化消亡这个主题的思考，实属遗憾。

《巴克劳》演员都是导演的亲戚吗？

就算认真地看完了电影，最终还是感觉头顶上的雾很浓。关于这个小镇的背影故事没有交待清楚，小镇里的人物谁是主角呢？分别是什么样的人呢？没说清楚；那些雇佣兵又是什么回事？电影里的每一个演员好象都是导演的亲戚，人人戏份相当，不分主次，各有一份戏，谁也不得罪，那到底想表达什么呢？唯一可圈之处就是：当弱势小群众在利益将受侵时，团结起来反抗，然后居然赢了，之后又可以当没事发生一样回到平静的生活中去。这无非是屌丝逆袭的另一种表达罢了，合乎人们不知觉下的感性需求。

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那两个特工是怎么被发现的？他们只是听到耳塞有杂音就开枪了，而且如果他们是特工怎么要杀村民？这样滥杀无辜，反派也问为什么要杀。也没有命令说要杀村民，除非是迫不得已是雇佣兵安排的任务，这俩个特工是调查市长的吗，不然怎么在这雇佣兵里做卧底？

最后的老大为什么要用狙击枪杀自己人？是被插到手的刺后出现幻觉了吗？

Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s third feature, sharing both director and writer’s credits with his production designer Juliano Dornelles, BACURAU, which means “nightjar” in English, is the name of a remote village in Brazil’s backcountry, where our nominal protagonist Teresa (Colen) returns to attend her 94-year-old grandmother’s funeral, who is the matriarch of the place, yet the villagers start to realize something uncanny is underfoot: the bullet holes on the truck which transports water for their daily use, a saucer-shaped drone materializes out of nowhere, the advent of two shady cross-country motorcyclists (Teles and Saboia), and most bizarrely, the village completely vanishes from all the digital maps.

After two villagers are shot point-blank when they discover the family of a nearby farm has been ruthlessly slaughtered, the bizarre lay of the land begins to clarify itself: a team of American mercenary gunslingers, led by Michael (Kier), is going to annihilate the entire village for pecuniary gain (one can fairly guesstimate who is their funder), and the whole village rises to the occasion collectively and valiantly, a climatic, Tarantino-esque pitched battle will settle the score once and for all, Manichaean and stirring like a vintage oater/slasher, and heads will definitely roll.

Awarded with Cannes’ Jury Prize, BACURAU assertively establishes Mendonça Filho’s move into the magic realism with vim and vigor (an idiom rooted profoundly in South America’s cinema soil): a clamorous funeral ritual where no tears is shed, in lieu there are pensive looks, exclamation and spiritual celebration; absurd encounter between villagers and two outsiders with tension sizzling underneath the casual pleasantries; and the virile braggadocio embodied by Lunga (Pereira, a queer actor who is famous for his cross-dressing flamboyance), the tribal warrior vowing for retaliation to the American intruders. While the interrelationship among those mercenaries borders on clichés of vulgarity, ethnocentric swagger and disturbing racism (one of them confesses that he balks at the idea of initiating a killing spree stateside, and is very grateful to the opportunity of unleashing his trigger-happy monomania onto another continent/race), one can clearly read Mendonça Filho and Dornelles’ grievance towards Brazil’s current despondent political climate (the virulent influence of USA) and the country’s own troubled post-colonial identity, where repressed anger and poetic justice make the fur fly in its gory but cathartic showdown, precipitated by a nude couple’s composed self-defense, elated by the throbbing electronic backbeat from its composers, but also muddled by Michael’s own equivocal, self-defeating caprice (and a blink-you-will-miss-it apparition).

Among the vast and capable cast, Mendonça Filho and Dornelles venerably put two cinema icons in the foreground, veteran Udo Kier pointedly underlines an arresting madness in his mad-keen glare whereas a cantankerous Sônia Braga runs away with the undiminished strength and steely resolution residing inside an old guard. BACURAU might not possess the slow-burning dramaturgy and reflective sensibility which grace Mendonça Filho’s AQUARIUS (2016), but as a genre-bending anomaly, it is an enterprising doozy highlights an emboldened Mendonça Filho’s gutsy exploration out of his own comfort zone.

referential entries: Kleber Mendonça Filho’s AQUARIUS (2016, 8.3/10); Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn’s THE DISTINGUISHED CITIZEN (2016, 7.9/10); Joaquim Pedro de Andrade’s MACUNAIMA (1969, 6.6/10).