Manda Bala (2007)
**** out of 5 stars
Directed by Jason Kohn
Language: Portuguese with English subtitles
Running Time: 85 min
Synopsis:
Sao Paulo, Brazil is a city of 20 million strong. It is also one of the most dangerously violent cities in the world. Manda Bala is a documentary about frog farming, plastic surgery, kidnapping and the corruption that ties all of these very lucrative industries together
Review:
I was a bit unsure of this one. Although I have found myself being drawn into them once I start them, I have never gotten very excited about watching documentaries. I was a bit apprehensive about one of them being my first Spout screener because I’m not sure I know how to review a documentary. They usually seem to be the type of film that you would see when an interest in that subject already exists. Oh well, I digress, it had all the makings of something I’d be interested in: fascinating synopsis, good cover art, frogs and subtitles.
First and foremost about this movie had to be the cinematography. This is not a trait you would necessarily associate with docs but this one just set the bar. The overall scenery was gorgeous, and some of the angles they used with the high speed camera, especially at the frog farm, peaked my interest. I also liked the ear replacement scene in the dimmed operating room.
I liked the music selection as well. I did think the sound editing was a little confused. It seemed that parts had the background music so loud that you couldn’t really hear the interviews. Of course, I don’t speak Portuguese anyway so I’m not sure exactly what I’m complaining about.
This movie also has a bit of footage from ransom tapes that are mixed in. As the film progresses, this clips continue to get more and more graphic. It actually is a little surprising that the director chose to put some of the more gut-wrenching scenes in because it comes up so gradually. I didn’t find this to be overly sensationalistic and if you are squeamish, you have plenty of time to close your eyes.
The problem I had with this documentary was that for the vast majority of it, I wasn’t sure of its thesis. I believe that the filmmaker (Kohn) was attempting to make a dramatic philosophical point, but it ultimately became clouded by the many different directions the rest of the film takes you. I think that what he was trying to say was that, if S.U.D.A.M. (a government program designed to re-distribute wealth to poorer regions) would have not been taken over by corruption and greed, Sao Paulo would be a dramatically different place. This may very well hold to be true, but didn’t we also learn that the same politicians who are corrupted by greed are staying in power by buying the vast majority of their votes with more social welfare programs in the slums?
I also was unsure about the message behind the part about the violent nature in which Portugal took over Brazil. Was his attempt to say that this type of behavior is so embedded into the culture of Brazil that the country’s future is doomed by its history?
After seeing all of the different industries that exist in Sao Paolo as a result of the kidnappings, I couldn’t help but to ask myself: How many residents would be out of work if the region became more secure. If people stopped bulletproofing their cars, hiring bodyguards, replacing their ears, taking helicopters to work, putting microchips in their body and taking advanced defensive driving courses, what would happen to that part of the economy? And more importantly, will we ever find out?
Regardless of anything I didn’t like about the movie, I would still have to recommend it. It was everything that you should want in a documentary. It was gripping from the opening scene and it keeps you absorbed with it right up until the closing credits. Any documentary should aspire to do what this one did, it pulled my interest into a subject that previously, I had none in.