Neon Bull

Neon Bull (Portuguese: Boi neon) is a 2015 Brazilian drama film directed by Gabriel Mascaro. The film premiered at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival and won the Horizons (Orizzonti) - Special Jury Prize. It was also shown in the Platform section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival,[2] where it received an honorable mention from the jury.[3] At the 31st Warsaw International Film Festival it received the main prize of the International Competition, the Warsaw Grand Prix.[4]

Neon Bull
Film poster
Directed byGabriel Mascaro
Produced byRachel Ellis
Written byGabriel Mascaro
StarringJuliano Cazarré
Vinícius de Oliveira
Music byOtávio Santos
Cláudio N
Carlos Montenegro
CinematographyDiego García
Edited byFernando Epstein
Eduardo Serrano
Distributed byImovision
Release date
  • 4 September 2015 (2015-09-04) (Venice)
  • 14 January 2016 (2016-01-14) (Brazil)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryBrazil
LanguagePortuguese
Box office$148,913[1]

Plot

Iremar (Juliano Cazarré) is a bull handler, working for a traveling group who transport bulls from rodeo to rodeo, who dreams of becoming a tailor and making fashionable clothing for women. He finds an outlet for his creativity making custom horse masks and provocative outfits for Galega (Maeve Jinkings), the group's driver who also performs sexually enticing dances for groups of men after each rodeo. They are accompanied by Galega's daughter, Cacá (Alyne Santana); and Zé (Carlos Pessoa), a buffoonish bull wrangler who is the butt of the other's jokes. The film deals mainly with the interactions between the members of this group, interspersed with Iremar's attempts to design clothing, and rodeo scenes. After an attempt by Iremar and Zé to steal valuable horse semen from a stud auction goes awry, Zé is offered a new job as a horse wrangler; he is replaced in the group by Junior (Vinícius de Oliveira) a young, attractive, and vain, but kind, man who befriends Cacá and becomes sexually involved with Galega. During a rodeo, Iremar meets Geise, a pregnant woman selling cologne and perfume from a large factory where she also works as a nighttime security guard. After the rodeo, Geise brings a bottle of cologne to Iremar as a gift. Later, at night, he visits her at the factory, where he is impressed by the industrial clothing machinery. She seduces him, the pair engage in sexual intercourse and the film ends.

Cast

Release

The feature film had its first worldwide screening on 3 September 2015, at Venice Festival. Its first Brazilian session took place at the Rio Festival on 4 October, where it won four awards. The film reached the Brazilian commercial circuit in January 2016.

Reception

Critical response

Neon Bull earned critical acclaim upon release. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 87% based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Neon Bull's hypnotic visual poetry occasionally borders on exploitation, though its reflective nature softens its animalistic gaze."[5] On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 80 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[6] It is ranked at number 60 on the "Best Movies of 2016" list.[7]

Accolades

Year Group/Award Category Recipient Result
2015 Venice International Film Festival Horizons (Orizzonti) – Best Film Gabriel Mascaro Nominated
Horizons (Orizzonti) - Special Jury Prize Won
2015 Toronto International Film Festival Platform – Best Film Gabriel Mascaro Nominated
2015 Toronto International Film Festival Platform - Special Mention Gabriel Mascaro Won
2015 Festival do Rio Best Film Gabriel Mascaro Won
2015 Festival do Rio Best Screenplay Gabriel Mascaro Won
2015 Festival do Rio Best Cinematography Diego Garcia Won
2015 Festival do Rio Best Supporting Actress Alyne Santa Won
2015 Filmfest Hamburg FIPRESCI Award Gabriel Mascaro Won
2015 Adelaide Film Festival Feature Fiction Award[8] Gabriel Mascaro Won

References

  1. "Neon Bull". The Numbers. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
  2. "Toronto International Film Festival Announces Inaugural Platform Lineup". IndieWire. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  3. "Toronto International Film Festival Announces 2015 Award Winners" (PDF) (Press release). TIFF. 20 September 2015. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  4. http://www.wff.pl/en/aktualnosci/31-wff-laureaci/ Awards announced at the festival site.
  5. "Neon Bull (Boi neon) (2016)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  6. "Neon Bull Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
  7. Dietz, Jason (4 January 2017). "The Best Movies of 2016". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  8. "Feature Fiction Award". Adelaide Film Festival. 8 June 2020. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
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