Manda Bala Documentary Review

The Brazil based film Manda Bala is an American-made Documentary that epitomizes the complex social dilemmas and socio-economical injustices that plague the illustrious and lucrative South American country.

This clever Documentary tackles the wide-scale issues of political corruption and social-class discord and its effects on modern-day Brazilian society by focusing on a diverse cross-level of citizens from every aspect of life. A Frog Farmer, a Dirty Politician, a Criminal, an Upper-Class Business man, a Kidnapping Victim, and a Plastic Surgeon are only a few of the main characters that play a major part in this indiscriminate tale. As the plot unfolds the stories of these characters begin to interweave, painting a bleak portrait of crime, corruption, violence, and injustice at every level.

If there were one word to sum up Director Jason Kohn's Manda Bala it would have to be brilliant. Everything about this film is technically sound and screams innovation. The structure is perfect; constructed of three precise acts with clear-cut, symbolic act-shifts that move the story along and achieve a precedence hardly attained by even the best of narrative films. The sixteen-millimeter Cinematography is exquisite and rife with symbolism befitting the theme and giving it a cinematic feel that few Documentaries achieve. One of the many high-points of the foreign language film is the innovative translating process which shuns subtitles (for the most part), choosing instead to have an on-camera English interpreter accompanying the interviewee. Despite the films larger than life topic, it manages to effectively explain the cause and effect relationship between a corrupt government, an over-abundance of wealth in the hands of the Upper-Class, and a poverty-stricken Lower-class turned to crime.

Manda Bala is a must-see film that educates, informs, and entertains as it exposes complicated issues that plague every socioeconomic level of modern day Brazilian society and lays them all out on the table for the rest of the world to see.