What has mystery, romance, flying saucers, men on horseback, smiles, chills, folklore to spare, horizontal wipes, and just enough splatter to prevent the Comic-Conners in the audience from texting? Answer: this all-encompassing, genre-bending satire from Brazil that examines just what a government can do to a complacent townsfolk who refuse to question authority. We open in the stratosphere; the time: “A few years from now.” Why the aeriform view? Because in space, no one can hear the (fictional) titular town being purged from all manner of digital media, so that it is left to exist only in the memories of the locals and the maps of old-school cartographers. The urge to expunge is traceable to the local Mayor, a greedy martinet eager to make cash by turning the town into a shooting gallery for human-hunting Anglos. (Of the three recent variations on The Most Dangerous Game, this is leaps and bounds ahead of Ready or Not and The Hunt.) A tanned, rested, and tantalyzingly rotten Udo Kier leads the hunt, and woe unto the one who dares to call him a Nazi. Kleber Mendonça Filho, this time co-directing with his production designer Juliano Dornelles, once again brings out the best in Sônia Braga. (If you like this, check out their other collaboration, the altogether differently disciplined Aquarius.) Be advised: this is not a popcorn picture, the sort that encourages viewers to flip their brains off for the duration of the wild ride. I’ll cop to several instances where a clarifying rewind was in order. Added incentive: Digital Gym Cinema programmer Moises Esparza calls it “trying to figure out a way to keep afloat amidst all the closures.” The DGC will earn a percentage of every ticket sold. For more information, visit: kinonow.com/bacurau-digital-media-gym (2019) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.