MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET) / Jason Kohn (2007)
September 28th, 2007 by Scott Marks
MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET) (2007)
Directed by Jason Kohn
Shot by Heloisa Passos
Genre: Documentary
Aspect Ratio: 
Running Time: 85 min.
Rating: 
Brazil may be the land of sun, fun, rain forests and stunning fashion models, but it’s a sure bet that tourism will be down once Manda Bala hits American screens.
Director Jacon Kohn set out to make “a non-fiction film…using the same visual language as a fictional one.” With its keen awareness of visual literacy, Manda Bala is unlike any documentary we’ve seen since Gunner’s Palace. Sao Paulo is the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere with more financial capital than the rest of
South America combined. In steep contrast to the country’s unparalleled riches, we find poverty, corruption, violent crime and many other maladies often associated with a developing nation.
Our unlikely point of entry is a frog farm. The locals love their frogs, and not just the legs. They batter dip the amphibians, toss them in a vat of boiling oil and devour them whole. Let’s hope that no one associated with the San Diego County Fair sees Manda Bala lest we find deep fried frogs floating in the same grease next to Twinkies, Oreos and Coca-Cola.
The farm was established by crooked politician Jader Barbalho who remains immune from prosecution and prison so long as he holds public office. Jader, former president of the Brazilian senate and current Congressman established the $9 million money laundering frog farm as part of a bogus public works project.
While the country may be tops when it comes to frog farms, they fail to boast the highest rate of kidnapping in the world. (That honor goes to Bogota and
Mexico City.) Still, averaging one abduction per day ranks Sao Paolo #3 with a bullet.
This constant sense of paranoia it taking its toll on residents. Mr. M is a wealthy businessman who spends every waking moment in fear of being robbed or snatched. M will go to any length imaginable to protect himself from the hordes of lower class robbing hoods. At great expense he has his car armored, takes a class where he learns to dodge paintballs and drive a bulletproof car, uses helicopters as we would taxi cabs and even goes so far as having a GPS microchip planted beneath his skin.
If you are wondering why Mr. M endures so many precautions just to get around, ask Patricia what happened to her. At age 21 she was taken from outside a
Sao Paulo bar. With Father’s Day just around the corner, how thoughtful it was for the kidnappers to send Patricia’s dad a piece of his daughter’s ear.
These guys don’t fool around. In the sixteen days it took the family to gather the ransom money, Patricia’s other ear was also sliced. Why can’t these thugs put their talent to good use by clipping Dobermans at the Westminster Kennel Club?
Kidnappers and car mechanics aren’t the only ones getting rich. Plastic surgeon Dr. Juarez Avelar has established cult status (and a burgeoning cottage industry) with his revolutionary advances in ear reconstruction.
Decades of splatter films left me with a high tolerance for on-screen dismemberment. It’s the real stuff that gets me and parts of this movie left my knuckles white from grabbing at the armrests. As if Patricia’s retelling of her abduction or talk of bumbling kidnappers who forget their scissors and use their teeth to amputate the lobe weren’t enough, we are forced to endure far too many minutes in the O. R.
Cartilage from the patient’s rib is removed and carved to form a new ear. If you want to watch what appears to be a bloody cocktail shrimp being grafted onto a human head, be my guest. Other may chose to pull down their baseball caps and watch the inside brim until the unnecessary surgery subsides.
Even with all the surgical discomfort on display, the film is great to look at. Want to put an end to talking head syndrome? Shoot your next documentary in CinemaScope where it’s virtually impossible to get a tight close-up.
Instead of having the interviewees respond to an offscrren interpreter, add him or her to the frame to establish an on-screen rapport with their subjects. Why did it take so long for someone to think of this?
While the visuals come together nicely, the same can’t be said of the film’s various story threads. You keep waiting for the frogs and cars and ears to form something more than a semi-related trail of corruption.
While the majority of contemporary documentaries work just fine on home video, Manda Bala was made with visual storytelling in mind and as such demands a big screen viewing.
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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical
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