The sparkle and surrealism of Neon Bull (Boi neon), the second feature from writer/director Gabriel Mascaro’s (August Winds), lurks right there in its title; just as glowing cattle seems atypical, so too prove the film’s characters. On the Brazilian rodeo circuit, they’re the support workers who transport the animals and prepare them to enter the ring. Theirs is a modest existence at first glance, defined by the routine of trekking along bumpy roads, sleeping in hammocks in the back of their truck, and going wherever the boss tells them — but glimmers of something special shines amidst the mundane, all of their own making.
Take the tale’s central figure, Iremar (Juliano Cazarré, Bald Mountain), as a case in point: when he’s not chalking the bulls’ tails before they enter the ring, he enlivens his days by dreaming of a career in fashion. To hone his skills, he sketches outfits over pornographic magazines, much to his co-worker — and co-conspirator in a plot to steal a prize horse’s semen — Zé’s (debutant Carlos Pessoa) dismay. When her pre-teen daughter Cacá (fellow first-timer Alyne Santana) isn’t in tow, their driver Galega (Maeve Jinkings, Neighbouring Sounds) acts as Iremar’s model, wearing the outfits he crafts while she happily moonlights as a horse-head-wearing exotic dancer.
The eccentric and the episodic intertwine in Mascaro’s narrative as he cycles through slices of Iremar and company’s lives, including the incursions offered by newcomer Júnior (Vinícius de Oliveira, Fala Sério!), who is obsessed with caring for his long locks, as well as pregnant cosmetic saleswoman Geise (Samya De Lavor, Com os Punhos Cerrados), who also works as textile a factory security guard. Such an approach may seem ripe for comedy, and some does eventuate; however the key to Neon Bull’s thoughtful, physical exploration of the contradictions of its ensemble of figures comes from the filmmaker’s style, with his background as a documentarian (including Housemaids and Avenida Brasília Formosa) influential.
In an observational manner as well as in adhering to the slow cinema tradition, the director watches and waits, often via distanced, single long shots, and just as often allowing his characters, as well as the cattle they’re frequently in close proximity to, to wander through the image. The feature appears to look on during their daily grind, but what it’s really witnessing is their complex personalities come to the fore in a series of minimalist moments and authentic flourishes. Disarming detail flows from small instances, such as Cacá following Iremar whenever she can, Galega performing an intimate feat of hair removal sitting in the truck, and Júnior running a straightening iron over his lengthy locks. Indeed, it is here that the movie’s most interesting insights into those who fill its frames — and patient building of their eschewing of convention, be it in makeshift family dynamics and diverse gender roles, or in their clear mirroring of the political state of their nation — burst forward, quietly yet brightly.
Naturalistic performances, possessing poise but absent theatricality, assist, never more so in fleshing out the primary duo of Iremar and Galega. Aesthetic control aids the film just as crucially; the space the actors subtly carve out on screen proves as telling and striking as Mascaro and cinematographer Diego García’s (Cemetery of Splendor) proffering of sometimes provocative, always vivid visuals that immediately have an impact. That the combination of the two, of unaffected portrayals and arresting sights, results in an effort both bursting with clarity and tinged with a dream-like state is hardly novel, though the spell it weaves is perhaps less expected. Again, the surprise of Neon Bull rears its head, trading in rough, raw perception while simultaneously serving up resonant filmic poetry.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Neon Bull (Boi neon)
Director: Gabriel Mascaro
Brazil | Uruguay | Netherlands, 2015, 101 mins
Adelaide Film Festival
adelaidefilmfestival.org
15-25 October 2016
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