Resistance, necropolitics, and revenge fantasies

Abstract

Bacurau by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles was the most controversial Brazilian film of 2019. It debuted at the Cannes Festival 2019 where it won the Special Jury Prize and later won more national and international distinctions. It was praised and criticized as a film that promotes resistance against the Bolsonaro government, and its sexist, racist and homophobic discourse. This article seeks to analyze three central aspects of the film: 1) how this resistance occurs against the American invaders who use the village of Bacurau for a real-life video game with its population as living targets; 2) the use of necropolitics, which historically resulted from the trafficking of people and slavery, and which is behind the sale of the village by its mayor Tony Júnior; and 3), the fantasy of revenge for this oppression. The main objective of this article consists in analyzing these aspects to understand whether the film contributes to the debate on racism in Brazil or not. We ask if it promotes a debate about the necessary decolonization to face the fundamental problem of inequality given the still-existing colonial power, or if it is just a vehicle for the political frustrations, offering viewers a momentary cathartic experience.

Keywords

• bacurau
• brazilian cinema
• contemporary cinema
• resistance
• necropolitics