Festival de Cannes 2023 | The Buriti Flower

Crowrā (The Buriti Flower) from filmmakers João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora (with additional screenplay credits for Ilda Patpro Krahô, Francisco Hyjnõ Krahô, and Henrique Ihjac Krahô – who all also appear in the film), is one of those films that blurs the line between documentary and narrative, both in its aesthetics and in its storytelling. It has a clear, undeniable narrative, but its style is drawn so clearly from the documentary world, and it would not surprise me if the reason three of the cast members, including two of the leads, have screenplay credits, is because they contributed stories drawn from their own lives that enriched the narrative of the film.

The film is about the Krahô indigenous people, who live in the heart of the Brazilian forest, and their fight to preserve their freedom, which includes fighting against encroaching colonizers on their land. It’s a fight for survival and it’s highlighted in the film in a few ways. One of the early ways it’s touched upon overtly is someone watching a video on climate change on their phone. This stood out because we’d already seen a hint of a steer on the edge of their land. Cattle ranching is the number one culprit for deforestation in most of the Amazon. It’s intrinsically linked to climate change.

By living each day on their land, they are on the front lines of the climate change battle. But those aren’t the only battles they are fighting. Every family, every community, fights to hold onto their traditions and stories in the advent of change, and you see them preparing for a celebration and passing on their histories while bemoaning that they’ve changed because now everyone wears clothes for the celebration (underwear and shorts for the men) but at the end of the day the way the kids and the adults rally together to try and find the Macaw that’s been taken. And then the adults stopping the Macaw thief on their bike and holding him and retrieving the stolen Macaw from their land, and berating and scolding him was one of those moments that makes you smile at the screen.

There are so many shots, especially while in the forest, that are just so beautifully composed. It was a treat for the eye. It was only after watching it, that I discovered that it was shot on 16mm film, but I’m not surprised. Not because you can’t film beautiful stuff digitally, but I find because film costs more, people tend to take greater care with what they shoot, and it really shows here.

I’m generally a believer that most films could be around 90-105 minutes so whenever films get to 120+ I hope they don’t drag. This film smartly placed its big flashback story piece at about the one-hour mark, giving its last hour a reinvigoration, a new drive of undertone as the characters set out to try and fight, before a very powerful final scene, of which I won’t spoil, but that makes a powerful statement that speaks to the themes of their own fight for their land and preserving their freedoms, and on a macro-scale, the global fight against climate change.

The Buriti Flower had its World Premiere at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section.

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