Review of Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) (2007) by Chads. — 27 Apr 2008

People are sluts for the camera, even in Brazil. The frog farmer has a lot of chutzpah, like any number of guys who believe they won't crack under the pressure of hardline questioning. Bottom line: people like to talk, even if they have something to hide.

But men with hubris possess a feeling of invincibility, so they foolishly grant sit-down interviews like volunteers for firing squads. The frog farmer bears a passing resemblance to the sort of people that Errol Morris profiled in "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control".

When the filmmaker loses interest in the agricultural aspect of his operations, the frog farmer asks the cameraman to stop shooting, after a question is posed to him about an alleged scandal that involved one of his friends.

Right about then, the interviewer quietly slips off his gloves, and drops any pretense that he's shooting a quirky character profile about a colorful person's idiosyncratic obsession(the subject of Morris' documentary).

The camera rolls on. The frog farmer looks a little nervous. Some will argue that "Manda Bala" is a stylish op/ed piece like Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"(because the documentarian already had his mind made up about the subject), but the frog farmer's refusal to talk, backs up the prosecutor's claim that Jader Barbalho is more like a mafia don than a politician.

This filmmaker scores a coup when he gets his subject to do an on-camera interview, although he won't talk about the frogs(the first rule of frog farm is- you do not talk about frog farm), which is better than Moore, who could never lure General Motors CEO Roger Smith in "Roger and Me".

"Manda Bala" is exciting like a narrative film. It's better than Fernando Meirelles' "Cidade de deus", that's for sure.