Indie Doubleheader: "Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)" and "Of All the Things"

Indie Doubleheader is a new feature we're trying out, where I will give fest-length reviews to notable indie films playing the fest circuit. If you're a filmmaker with a film you'd like me to consider for this column, or a film lover who's seen a film you loved and you'd like to see us cover, drop me a line at kim (at) cinematical (dot) com.

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)

What do corrupt politicians, tree bull frogs, plastic surgery and kidnapping have in common? In Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), director Jason Kohn skillfully weaves these seemingly disparate elements together into a cohesive tale of power and corruption, poverty and wealth in Sao Paulo, the capitol of the state of Sao Paulo. Opening on a money-laundering tree farm, Kohn sets the tone of the film early with some beautiful cinematography and a riveting, unobstrusive score.

At its heart, Manda Bala is a tale about money and power. The disparity between the very rich and the very poor is marked in the bigger cities of Brazil, where the wealthy live in fantastic mansions and high-rises that overlook Brazil's favelas -- thousands of rickety shacks of cardboard and metal sheeting, where millions of poor Brazilian's struggle to survive amid crushing poverty and brutal living conditions. In Sao Paulo, the kidnapping of wealthy civilians for ransom has become a huge problem the police force is ill-equipped to resolve.

How does all this tie in with a frog farm? The crux of the story Kohn presents revolves around SUMAR SUDAR, a multi-billion dollar economic development project for interior Brazil's poorest regions, spearheaded by enormously popular politician Jader Barbalho. Barbalho, who is alleged to have funneled billions out of the fund, has managed to elude justice by staying in office, where he is immune from prosecution. In making Manda Bala, Kohn sought to do more than just examine the lives of the poor living in the slums; he wanted to explore the culpabilities and causes that have caused both the disparity of wealth in Brazil and its end results.

To get at the answers, Kohn interviews a series of people whose dots connect his story: a victim of a kidnapping, abducted outside a nightclub when she was 21, whose kidnappers cut off both her ears before her family paid her ransom 16 days later; a man who makes his living kidnapping wealthy citizens and collecting ransoms, a wealthy citizen who bullet-proofs luxury cars for Sao Paulo's wealthy elite, and Dr. Juarez Avelar, a plastic surgeon who specializes in reconstructing the ears of kidnap victims.

The kidnap victim's story is harrowing; she painfully recounts her experience in captivity, the contrast between the kidnappers occasional kindnesses to her with the brutality with which they cut off her ears, the nightmares she still suffers from in the wake of what happened to her. In contrast, we see the kidnapper, talking as calmly about what he does as another man might discuss being an accountant or a plumber; kidnapping is his job to him, nothing more, and he doesn't lose sleep over the moral implications of the way in which he makes his living. Neither does Barbalho, but at least the kidnapper is honest about his lack of morals.

Beyond that, Kohn also wanted to make a film that was both stylized and visually beautiful, to show that documetary filmmaking can use visual imagery and stunning cinematography to the same effect narrative film does. In that, he certainly succeeds, as Manda Bala pummels you visually (and I mean that in a good way) with shot after artful shot. This is visual, artistic filmmaking at its finest, and for a new filmmaker like Kohn to achieve this level of beauty in a documentary film is a monumental achievement very deserving of the awards the film has received (most recently, three awards at the inaugural Cinema Eye Awards).

Of All the Things

If I asked you who Dennis Lambert is, would you know? How about if I hummed a few bars of "Baby Come Back," "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)," "Nightshift," or "Rhinestone Cowboy" ... would those songs ring a bell? Chances are, you've heard many of Lambert's songs over the years; the prolific songwriter wrote and produced hundreds of songs for the likes of The Commodores, The Four Tops, and Glen Campbell; at one time he and co-writer Brian Potter had four songs simultaneously on Billboard's Top 100 Chart. And yet, in the United States, while Lambert's songs are still known and loved, his name has largely been forgotten.

Not so in the Phillipines, the one place where Lambert's singular attempt as a solo recording artist, with an album titled "Bags and Things," was a huge hit. One of the singles from that album, a love song called "Of All the Things," still endures 35 years after the album's release as one of the most popular songs ever in the Phillipines, especially on Valentine's Day, when countless Filipino's dedicate the tune to their beloved.

Lambert traded in the trappings of showbiz for a peaceful life of relative obscurity as a real estate agent selling luxury homes to those with the means to buy them. Years later, he finds his complacency in giving up his music challenged when a Filipino producer invites Lambert to come to the Phillipines to perform live at a series of concerts for a "Great American Songwriters" feature with another music legend, Paul Williams.

Trepidatious about the proposal at first, Lambert finally, with the encouragment of his wife Tina and children, decided to take the plunge and perform his songs on stage for the first time in decades, and son, Jody, with childhood friend Taylor Williams, decided to make a documentary about his father's return to the music he loves, but had set aside for so many years. His teenage daughter wanted to go on the trip too, but says in the film that her teachers weren't keen on her missing two full weeks of school. Maybe it's just the rebellious homeschooling mama in me, but I would have said, screw the teachers. You can always make up two weeks of schoolwork; the opportunity to see her father step back into the limelight, to witness the courage it took for him to do that, and the personal growth that resulted, was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and there's no way I would have let any school tell my kid she couldn't go on a trip like that.

This is one of those straightforward documentaries that, while not shot with a great deal of stylized or fancy artistry, rises above its limitations to touch the viewer by the sheer power of its subject. I don't say this to take anything away from the film, but there are stylized, cinematic, painterly docs, and then there are docs that rely on the film's subject to carry them, and this film is of the latter school of doc-making. Perhaps because it was his son behind the camera, Lambert opens up emotionally in a way that reveals so much about himself -- his joy in songwriting, the long-buried sorrow at leaving that side of himself behind, the very real fears he has to face to take a chance, at this stage of his life, to get on stage before thousands of people and perform again. This is a real human drama about an ordinary guy rising above his own fears to shine in the spotlight again, and it's at once touching and compelling to watch.

Of All the Things is interesting and entertaining -- I learned things I never knew about Lambert, and the film is clearly a labor of love and admiration from his son, who wanted to capture this moment in his father's life as more than just a home movie. Lambert comes across in the film, both in interviews and in his interactions with others -- even in moments when technical challenges mess up one of the shows -- as a genuine and lovely person, a gifted artist who set aside his passion for decades, and is rejoicing in finding it again. Good for him.

Of All the Things just won the Audience Award for Documentary at the Sarasota Film Festival, and can be seen next at the Palm Beach, Nashville, Berkshires, and Nantucket film fests.