Four stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang
This one sneaks up on you.
Brazil’s Academy Award nominee in
the Animated Feature category is a dazzling, extremely personal and ultimately
quite sobering allegory by writer/director Alê Abreu ... although, at first, it
doesn’t seem that way.
The opening act is aggressively
simplistic, the characters little more than stick figures placed against the
sort of random, wildly colorful landscape that one would expect from a small
child playing with crayons. Indeed, our young hero — Cuca — is a small child.
He’s introduced while enjoying
the carefree playtime typical of innocent youngsters brought up in a cozy rural
environment: darting through fields, and allowing his imagination to run riot
in an opulent kaleidoscope of fanciful adventures (such as jumping high enough
to land on the overhead clouds).
Cuca can be happy via the simple
act of planting a seed, particularly when helped by his beloved parents.
The pacing is slow, the cacophonous,
hand-drawn visuals unapologetically haphazard and weird. The apparent “story,”
such as it is, unfolds without dialog ... or, at least, without dialog that
matters. Brief and occasional conversations emerge as little more than
unintelligible grunts and whistles, much like the “talking” in Britain’s Shaun the Sheep.
Instead of dialog, Cuca’s
escapades unfold against a lyrical musical score by Ruben Feffer and Gustavo
Kurlat: merely a hint of the rich, genre-blending melodies to come.
The alluring visuals and music
notwithstanding, you’ll likely start to chafe, wondering if anything of
consequence is coming. The answer is absolutely, but — at least initially —
patience is required.
Matters turn a bit more serious
one morning, as Cuca watches his father depart on an oddly metallic,
centipede-esque train (the first hint that Abreu’s animation style won’t remain
as minimalist as we might expect). The boy doesn’t understand why Dad is leaving,
although we assume the latter is seeking work. But Cuca isn’t willing to wait
behind, like his patient mother; he charges out of the house, determined to
reunite his family.
And thus begins a journey that
unfolds like a tapestry — deliberately — and becomes increasingly complicated
and politically charged, just as Abreu’s animation style turns equally complex.
Cuca encounters a series of kind
strangers, starting with an aging laborer who, accompanied by his faithful dog,
trudges wearily each morning into cotton fields. The work is done by a tightly
choreographed team of shrub-shaking stilt-walkers and lock-stepping cart
pushers: an agrarian ballet that blossoms into a music-laden dance.
The boy’s next chaperone is
another breed of day-laborer: one of the countless cogs who handles mind-numbingly
repetitive tasks in the massive factory that transforms the cotton into yarn.
After a typically back-breaking day, Cuca’s newest companion climbs the endless
steps to his tiny dwelling in the enormous shantytown favela that exists alongside a wealthy cityscape, where gaily
dressed inhabitants give not a thought to the sweat labor that keeps them
clothed.
And, lest they do develop a social conscience, the city
dwellers are kept distracted by bread and circuses: blaring TV ads and wildly
popular sporting matches.
Abreu’s politics — and his
increasingly pointed message — are starting to show. Fairy-tale charm fades
against a grim and brutal message.
The cityscape animation becomes
ever more complex: a garish blend of découpage streets and shop windows, and disturbingly
sinister, animal-like machines. Order is maintained by a massive, black-garbed
military presence, which parades the city streets accompanied by imposing
weapons.
It’s the ultimate clash between
village and city, hand-crafted and mechanized, poor and rich ... with the
former eternally getting wholly, totally screwed.
The common herd’s only respite
comes with music, whether generated by one man with a flute, or an entire
neighborhood enjoying a spontaneous festival. The film’s score follows suit,
delivering an energetic, high-spirited blend of pan-flute, samba and Brazilian
hip-hop. Cuca delights in the melodic variety, as do we; this definitely is a film to be enjoyed on
the big screen, in a theater with a superior surround sound system.
The boy sees — and even captures
— these melodic notes as colorful puffs that float like cotton on the breeze:
an oddly touching visualization of harmony and song.
Ultimately, though, even the
soul-saving music is cruelly taken away, like the jobs that vanish as new,
voraciously animalistic machines more efficiently replace the already
poverty-stricken workers who’ve depended on such employment for survival. The
climactic clash takes place as a metaphor: a massive, rainbow-hued,
samba-fueled phoenix struggling to survive the attack of an ebony, equally
large raven unleashed by the military march music.
By now our senses — and political
sensibilities — are furiously assaulted. Abreu amplifies the horror with
live-action inserts: the destruction of farmland, the rape of Brazil’s rain
forests, the sewage-spewing encroachment of unchecked industry.
It’s a dystopian nightmare come
to life ... all experienced through the eyes of a small boy who, inevitably,
loses his innocence. A fleeting epilog is even more brutal, the allegory
progressing full circle in a manner that suggests totalitarian control never
will relent, and in fact will get even worse.
There’s little doubt that Abreu
has an extremely dim view of post-industrial Brazil’s callous disregard for her
poorer migrant and laborer citizens. Boy
and the World is an incredibly powerful indictment ... and yet one that
leaves us with a note of solace.
Music continues to soothe the
heart and soul, and it can be made from by banging pots and pans, or turning
cast-off junkyard detritus into oddly elaborate instruments. (One melodic
gadget immediately reminded me of the percussive bicycle employed by composer
Benoît Charest, in 2003’s The Triplets of
Belleville.)
As long as we have music, we have
hope ... and, perhaps, the means to escape a life of harsh, tedious drudgery.
I only wish this film were
distributed better. Big-screen bookings have been scarce; Berkeley seems the
closest venue to the Sacramento Valley. But — rest assured — it’s worth the
drive.
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