Little White Lies - 03.2020 - 04.2020

Bacurau has shaken

the foundations

of Brazillian film

culture. We meet its

fiery co-creator.

x-film critic turned writer-director

Kleber Mendonça Filho has made three

features in creative partnership with

production designer Juliano Dornelles. Their

first, Neighbouring Sounds, from 2012, offered

a portrait of a walled housing conurbation,

while their second, Aquarius, from 2016, saw a

woman standing tall against malicious property

developers. Their new film, Bacurau, has been

a massive success in Brazil, as it depicts the

violent persecution of rural and working class

citizens and offers more than a nod to genre

maestro John Carpenter.

LWLies: Do the government of Brazil see a film

like Bacurau as a political threat? Mendonça

Filho: It’s so complicated to discuss, because it’s

really about a general contempt for artists and

not caring for the system that was set up. They

don’t understand it so they don’t like it. For

example, when we went to Cannes with the film,

we didn’t get plane tickets to go to there. Which

is absurd because it’s like an athlete going to

the Olympics and having to pay their own way.

The sports ministry, or whatever, should pay for

that ticket. So, that’s a little thing. Cannes and

Locarno, no tickets. But now it’s becoming more

complex. LGBT-themed films mysteriously just

have to join the dots with regard to finances.

They too don’t get tickets. There was a film with

a very daring, bold poster – it has an anus with a

flower coming out of it. No tickets for them.

Who are the people who are saying no? People

inside the government. But the biggest thing is

that there are maybe 150 projects that are being

developed, or were being developed, and now

there’s been a criminalisation of the funding

system. There’s a part of the government which

is a watchdog for accounting, and these people

have been weaponised to investigate the hell out

of the culture agency. So when they do that, they

install a climate of terror. Plus, there are people

now under federal investigation because of a

project they oversaw two years ago. The whole

system is frozen. No films are being put forward.

Is this down to this idea that the right have

contempt for art and culture? Not only culture

but also knowledge. The universities in Brazil

are being strangled.

Are the media complicit in the corruption?

They are completely. I mean it’s the stuff of

mental illness. Because the media in Brazil

is like this: So, Kleber, are you enjoying your

red wine? And I say, this is cold coffee. No

Kleber, this is red wine. No this is coffee, look,

it’s coffee. And then you see it on a television

programme, it says Kleber was drinking wine

this morning in the hotel. And then you look

at it and you go, that’s not wine that’s coffee.

The media is so powerful in Brazil that they

managed to turn what everybody knew, which

was the success of the Lula into something that

never happened. In fact nobody remembers

what happened in those years. It’s not even

fake news, it’s official news, rewritten for

political purposes.

Your first film, Neighbouring Sounds, had this

subtle threat level from outside this housing

complex. Then it increased in Aquarius when

developers are trying to tear down a housing

complex. And then the threat increases again

here. Yeah, it’s true. Neighbouring Sounds was

made in a beautiful moment of Brazilian society.

It was far from perfect, but the tension was still

there. It was more about the awkwardness of social

relations. Aside from that tension, it probably is

the film that has quite a lot of joyous elements to

it as well, there’s sort of little bits of poetry and

positivity. Brazil was much more stable. It was a

democratic moment. And then Aquarius, that’s

when things start to go wrong.

It must be especially pleasing, under these

circumstances, that Bacurau has been such a

massive success in Brazil? There’s certainly

an irony. I mean Bacurau is a special case, but

Brazilian cinema is having its best year ever. I’m

not talking about box office numbers, I’m talking

about prestige. It’s the result of many years of

work. It was built very carefully with democratic

dialogue for 15 years, and now we’re beginning

to see the results. We had films in Sundance, in

Rotterdam, Cannes, Berlin. And now they are

trying to close it down

INTERVIEW 065

IN CONVERSATION Interview by DAVID JENKINS Illustration by MARINA ESMERALDO

Kleber Mendonça Filho

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