If Sequestrada<\/strong><\/em> were a documentary, it might be a success. Onscreen titles explain the plight of Brazil\u2019s indigenous tribes, who have been displaced by the construction of river dams since at least 1989. Writers\/directors Sabrina McCormick and Soopum Sohn give a few statistics regarding these dams\u2019 negative effect on not just the tribes but also on climate change. The movie ends with a URL to visit to support the tribes\u2019 protests and action against Brazil\u2019s government. It features characters who are real-life members of the Arara tribe, non-actors that McCormick and Sohn shoot in a loose, consumer-grade HD camera style. McCormick has worked on documentaries like 2014\u2019s The Years of Living Dangerously<\/em> series, and the film feels just as well researched as any doc. The problem is, McCormick and Sohn use their material not for documentary purposes but as background for a dramatic thriller, an approach that admirably tries to make the real-life issues of the film connect emotionally, but ultimately fails.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a shame, because the movie does have a decent story to work with. Sequestrada<\/em> revolves around an ensemble of characters of different social and ethnic backgrounds, making a point of showing the effect of the dams\u2019 construction on all walks of life. Arara teen Kamodijara (Kamodijara Xipia de Ferreira) is separated from her family while on a shopping trip to Altamira, sending her Father (Cristiano G. Nascimento) into a frenzy. After Kamodijara is trafficked to a madam, she\u2019s sold to a local member of the government organization FUNAI, Roberto (Marcelo Olinto). <\/p>\n\n\n\n A series of circumstances causes Father to believe the American representative of a firm investing in the dam, Thomas (Tim Blake Nelson), is the man who took his daughter, a belief that Roberto encourages, seeing it as his opportunity to weaken foreign interests in his government\u2019s swindle. Thomas is taken by Father to the Arara\u2019s land, strung up and tortured for something he didn\u2019t do directly but is tangentially connected to. Sequestrada<\/em> means \u201ckidnapped\u201d in Portuguese, and the significance of that title is fairly obvious, both in its literal meaning as well as the subtext of the larger political issue\u2014people, land, and the environment are being taken against their will.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The film\u2019s plot has the makings of a decent thriller, and it\u2019s clear that McCormick and Sohn are aiming to stand alongside films like Alejandro I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s Babel<\/em> (2006) or Stephen Gaghan\u2019s Syriana<\/em> (2005). Those movies pair their political messages with fictional plots that are propulsive, dramatic, and emotional, using genre tropes to bolster their characters. Sequestrada<\/em> is devoid of all of these elements, its story and characters presented in the blandest possible way. Part of that is undoubtedly the clash between untrained and professional actors, as the contrast between, for instance, Nascimento’s and Nelson\u2019s performances is night and day. The language barrier doesn\u2019t help, either, with some characters uncomfortably speaking broken English and their Portuguese being awkwardly translated into subtitles, as if through an algorithm. Using untrained real-life people to play themselves means that most of the film is clearly improvised, or at least written on the fly on location. This causes a lack of dramatic intent in every scene, leaving most moments feeling aimless even if the overall message is clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n McCormick and Sohn have extensive backgrounds in the academic world, and that\u2019s likely why Sequestrada<\/em> feels less like a narrative film and more like a soulless lecture. The movie begins with some documentary footage of the Arara tribe and their daily life, and it\u2019s the most engaging part of the film. The directors keep the frank and unobtrusive shooting style of this brief section for the rest of the movie, resulting in an overall bland look that, when combined with the clearly fictional scenes, becomes distancing. The score by Marco Antonio Guimares doesn\u2019t help any, sounding too reminiscent of the muzak scores that used to accompany educational movies shown in classrooms. The usage of Max Richter\u2019s stirring \u201cOn The Nature of Daylight\u201d at the end of the movie feels like a cheap ploy for sentiment, and is so unearned it feels more like temp score than a dramatic choice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s nuance to the characters and situations that the directors won\u2019t or can\u2019t explore, leaving things like Roberto\u2019s possible pedophilia in kidnapping Kamodijara a bizarre, uncomfortably unresolved element. Even a great actor like Nelson (who is also a producer on the film) is left adrift, delivering lines like \u201cOh no, the mosquitos!\u201d that land as unintentionally hilarious. Unlike the great political thrillers, Sequestrada<\/em> does a disservice to its subject by presenting it with all the emotion of a PowerPoint presentation. Perhaps visiting the URL link at the end of the film would be a more rousing way to learn about the issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n C-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If Sequestrada were a documentary, it might be a success. Onscreen titles explain the plight of Brazil\u2019s indigenous tribes, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":12951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340,1381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1 hr., 32 min; not rated<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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