Customer Reviews

Manda Bala

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If Tarantino made documentaries, this is what they'd look like. Beautifully lensed, perfectly edited, and laced throughout with a killer soundtrack of brazillian tunes, this movie grabs you from the first moment and captivates till the last frame. Rather than beating you over the head with it's message, or concocting a bogus narrative to tell a specific story, instead, Manda Bala interweaves numerous characters and their various roles in the drama of Sao Paulo's infamous daily kidnappings. These interwoven tales are so expertly layered that the filmmakers intended conclusions appear innescapable. It's a simply brillant piece of documentary work that everyone should see.

Beautiful. Humanize human beings. I wouldn't recommend to those who live in Sao Paulo or has love ones there. Great film about Brazil' system, economy, politics made by a foreigner. Surprised me.
Must see film for ALL Brazilian people.
The truth is not always easy to be faced but is necessary.

Normally I don't watch documentaries, but I was sent this one as a screener and it was terrific ! ! It was a winner at this years Sundance Film Festival and features some of the best most honest interesting interviews I have ever seen. It manages to show all sides to the business of kidnapping in Brazil, from victim to perpetrator, to police & prosecutors to the corrupt judicial officials who refuse to convict government officials who break the law of the land.

Well worth the purchase price and the investment of time to watch.

Director Jason Kohn does an amazing job demonstrating the tie that binds a variety of strangers in Sao Paolo, from frog farmers and plastic surgeons, to kidnapping victims and the city's police. It's the butterfly effect at it's darkest.

The documentary paints an amazing portrait of Sao Paolo, whose class system seems largely the result of centuries of corruption. One of the most interesting aspects of the film is a comparison that is unusually never directly pointed out. The frogs being farmed are cooped up, and will occasionally eat one another. In a film highlighting people living in a crime-ridden and impoverished city, the subtle comparison fits perfectly.

The real footage of kidnap victims is totally raw, and the interview with the kidnapper is both profound and gritty. The documentary is shot and framed well, and offers some amazing views of the good and bad that Sao Paolo has to offer. If you enjoy a documentary that makes you think, you should absolutely add Manda Bala to your collection.

Manda Bala tackles some very difficult themes in a way that is factual yet palatable enough to draw an audience into the story. Kidnapping and human trafficking have increasingly been in the public eye in recent years. These traumatic crimes take an incredible toll on victims and society at large. This documentary centers on Brazil's crown city, Sao Paolo. There the wealthy live in proximity to a large poor population, creating an environment where a kidnapping epidemic is flourishing. Ultimately, poverty increases the incentive for the poor to turn to kidnapping as a means to economic survival.

Yet first time director Jason Kohn presents this dark reality with stylistic and slick imagery and music. This dichotomy mirrors the irony of such a grim problem plaguing one of the most beautiful and alluring countries in the world.

Sao Paolo has about 20 million inhabitants, which is more than twice the size of the NY metropolitan area in terms of population. Combined with the fact that the anti-kidnapping unit is only 80 men strong, the authorities are simply too overwhelmed to prevent and respond to these incidents.

Many people associate these problems with Central and South American nations. Yet while Mexico City leads the Western hemisphere in total kidnappings per city, many people would be surprised to learn that Phoenix, Arizona has recently become the number two city in terms of kidnapping incidents. So this documentary highlights a problem that is relevant for Brazil as well as for the USA. Yet so much of this film's effectiveness is based on the way the film-maker highlights the unique circumstances surrounding the complicated mix of social and economic issues that allow kidnappings to flourish.

What does a frog farm have to do with kidnapping? How does government corruption play a role when the kidnappers themselves mostly operate independently? And why have government programs designed to alleviate poverty actually become part of the problem? These are the complicated web of questions that the director presents.

Yet none of the director's biases or opinions are clear from any of the interview segments. Rather, he cleverly presents interviews that represents all the different sides of the problem. Instead of simple answers, we get a thought provoking and multi-layered depiction. By showing the issue from multiple points of view, we get deeper insight into the many areas of Brazil's society that contribute to these problems.

As part of the interviews, we get to see a profile of the anti-kidnapping division. One of the officers proudly displays his personal arsenal, including about a dozen weapons he owns for his own protection. He even admits that he has illegally bought assault rifles from the black market. One can't help but to be pessimistic when even law enforcement officers feel the need to have their own personal weapons stockpiles.

Physical violence is a large part of the kidnapping problem. Kidnappers often cut ears and fingers off their victims to prove to their families that they mean business. We even have some coverage of a plastic surgeon who makes his living reconstructing cut off ears from rib cartilage. But psychological warfare is also inherent in kidnapping. According to one of the people in the movie, one person is being kidnapped every day in Sao Paolo. Kidnappers use fear tactics to extract the largest ransoms possible and keep victims from fighting back.

There is also an emphasis on corrupt government officials who have used their positions of power in order to exploit the programs that are designed to assist the poor. In Brazil, politicians in office are exempt from criminal prosecution. So, as stated by one interviewee, "They steal because they know they will never be punished." As the funds meant to ease poverty continue to be diverted, more and more poor people have fewer alternatives to the extremely lucrative draw of kidnapping.

And perhaps in his boldest move, the director profiles one of the actual kidnappers. His justifications are difficult to accept: he doesn't think about the consequences of his actions and actually sees himself as a sort of a "Robin Hood" figure.

CONCLUSION

Few documentaries present such a polarizing issue from so many points of view. I highly recommend this film to all those interested in the problems of kidnapping and human trafficking. Even those unfamiliar with those subjects will find themselves drawn into this movie. Just be forewarned that a few scenes are difficult to watch. But for making a captivating movie out of such a difficult subject, the director deserves a lot of credit.

Enjoy.

Manda Bala (Send A Bullet) exposes the vast extent of corruption and crime in Brazil. This film is definitely not for the faint of heart; there are some graphic images including reconstructive surgeries. Nevertheless, Manda Bala is strong and it drives its point home very well. Director Jason Kohn has done a marvelous job with this film; and more people should see it. The cinematography is excellent.

In order to expose the full extent of the problem with crime and corruption in Brazil; this documentary has quite a few interviews with people who each explain their views regarding the situation. We meet a criminal mastermind who has his own organization kidnapping people and holding them for millions of dollars in ransom, cutting off their ears to show he's not about to return his victims until the family pays the ransom and the cops stay out of the way. This criminal tries to explain away his bad deeds by telling the interviewing team that he is in fact a modern day Robin Hood who helps the impoverished people in his slum by providing them with propane and medicine whenever they need it. We also get an extensive interview with a man called Diniz, who chose his frog farm over his former wife. Diniz is apparently in cahoots with a remarkably corrupt politician who has held every political office in Brazil except the presidency, Jader Barbalho. No matter what happens people like Diniz and Jader Barbalho always escape any meaningful or long lasting prosecution and jail time. When Barbalho is in fact arrested after a very lengthy investigation, it's only a very short while before another court finds him not guilty and Barbalho quickly returns to public life with his eyes set on getting back his political power.

Of course, we also meet the "good guys." But there are so few of them! Sao Paulo, a major city in Brazil, has roughly 86 cops for the 20 million people living there. Another man, this one an entrepreneur who prefers to go simply by "Mr. M.," states that he only feels safe if he's driving in a bulletproof car and there's even a company that offers courses in how to operate bulletproof cars. "Mr. M." adds that that the only other truly safe way to navigate the Sao Paulo area is to fly around by helicopter. How nice!

One big hero in particular is the plastic surgeon Dr. Juarez Avelar who works tirelessly to restore the look of a regular ear to people who have had their ears cut off by kidnappers. One such lady interviewed goes by "Patricia;" she was apparently operated on by Dr. Avelar. We see him explain how much this means to him although the scenes of his surgeries are very intense.

The DVD comes with a few deleted scenes and we also get an audio commentary with director Jason Kohn and the film's producers.

Manda Bala is a film of great importance that simply isn't getting the recognition it deserves. I highly recommend this film; it's an excellent documentary and very educational as well.

I was a bit unsure of this one. Although I have found myself being drawn into them once I start them, I have never gotten very excited about watching documentaries. I was a bit apprehensive about one of them being my first Spout screener because I'm not sure I know how to review a documentary. They usually seem to be the type of film that you would see when an interest in that subject already exists. Oh well, I digress, it had all the makings of something I'd be interested in: fascinating synopsis, good cover art, frogs and subtitles.

First and foremost about this movie had to be the cinematography. This is not a trait you would necessarily associate with docs but this one just set the bar. The overall scenery was gorgeous, and some of the angles they used with the high speed camera, especially at the frog farm, peaked my interest. I also liked the ear replacement scene in the dimmed operating room.

I liked the music selection as well. I did think the sound editing was a little confused. It seemed that parts had the background music so loud that you couldn't really hear the interviews. Of course, I don't speak Portuguese anyway so I'm not sure exactly what I'm complaining about.

This movie also has a bit of footage from ransom tapes that are mixed in. As the film progresses, this clips continue to get more and more graphic. It actually is a little surprising that the director chose to put some of the more gut-wrenching scenes in because it comes up so gradually. I didn't find this to be overly sensationalistic and if you are squeamish, you have plenty of time to close your eyes.

The problem I had with this documentary was that for the vast majority of it, I wasn't sure of its thesis. I believe that the filmmaker (Kohn) was attempting to make a dramatic philosophical point, but it ultimately became clouded by the many different directions the rest of the film takes you. I think that what he was trying to say was that, if S.U.D.A.M. (a government program designed to re-distribute wealth to poorer regions) would have not been taken over by corruption and greed, Sao Paulo would be a dramatically different place. This may very well hold to be true, but didn't we also learn that the same politicians who are corrupted by greed are staying in power by buying the vast majority of their votes with more social welfare programs in the slums?

I also was unsure about the message behind the part about the violent nature in which Portugal took over Brazil. Was his attempt to say that this type of behavior is so embedded into the culture of Brazil that the country's future is doomed by its history?

After seeing all of the different industries that exist in Sao Paolo as a result of the kidnappings, I couldn't help but to ask myself: How many residents would be out of work if the region became more secure. If people stopped bulletproofing their cars, hiring bodyguards, replacing their ears, taking helicopters to work, putting microchips in their body and taking advanced defensive driving courses, what would happen to that part of the economy? And more importantly, will we ever find out?

Regardless of anything I didn't like about the movie, I would still have to recommend it. It was everything that you should want in a documentary. It was gripping from the opening scene and it keeps you absorbed with it right up until the closing credits. Any documentary should aspire to do what this one did, it pulled my interest into a subject that previously, I had none in.

The documentary was very interesting, and had the potential to be worthy of five stars, but I was dumbfounded as to why so many important interviews had no subtitles or translation. While some interviews were held with an English translator translating the Portuguese on the spot, three of the most important interviews had no translator or no subtitles and thus went way over my head. The interviews with Jader, the corrupt politician, the anti-kidnapping unit, and the kidnapper were done only in Portuguese and had no subtitles so I didn't understand any of it. If this is being marketed to Americans, on an American site, through video on demand, it should be entirely comprehensible to American audiences. I missed the most interesting and most important interviews because for some ridiculous, utterly illogical reason, no subtitles. I watched it on video on demand and I don't know if the same issue exists on DVD but what we watch on VOD should be exactly what would show up on a DVD player. The lack of subtitles really took away from the documentary. I honestly feel cheated.

This is a very good and different reportage about kidnaping in S.Paulo - Brazil. You have to buy it to see.

This film uses interviews with people who at first don't really seem to have any connection with each other. There is the frog farmer, the plastic surgeon, the businessman with the bulletproof car, and the policeman, among others. As the film really gets underway we quickly see how these stories paint a vivid and shocking portrait of the terrifying kidnapping phenomena in Sao Paulo. Parallel to this story we get an insight into how alleged corruption diverting funds earmarked to help the poor in the northeast into the pockets of wealthy politicians contributes to the problem, since it is apparently often poor people from the northeast that migrate to Sao Paulo and perpetrate these horrific kidnappings in the hopes of making their fortunes. One of the most shocking scenes in the film for me was of a group of ragged-looking kids in the northeast (and I mean children ten years old and younger) "playing" at kidnapping on the streets. A truly shocking yet informative film. Highly recommended.