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(aka "Neon Bull")

 

Directed by Gabriel Mascaro
Brazil | Uruguay | Netherlands 2015

 

Gabriel Mascaro's sensual, subversive Neon Bull unfolds within the macho world of the vaquejada, a traditional Brazilian form of rodeo. Iremar is a bull wrangler, who aspires to being a fashion designer, and the film follows him and his friends as they travel from rodeo to rodeo dreaming of better days ahead.

Balancing a provocative realism with improvisational drama, Neon Bull is a celebration of its characters and their everyday lives as well as their obstinate capacity to dream. It explores the lives of its protagonists in evocative tableaux of fierce, funny, sweaty intimacy which lyrically subverts its macho domain.

***

Contrasts are everywhere in Gabriel Mascaro's Neon Bull, from the title with its tension between ideas of town and country, and earthiness and the manmade right through its subject matter and colour palette, which embraces both the elemental tones associated with documentary and highly stylised segments featuring splashes of the neon from the title.

Iremar (Juliano Cazarré) also avoids easy categorisation, working by day at the vaquejada - a type of rodeo in which two cowboys on horseback run with a bull before attempting to flip it over by pulling on its tail - while tying to pursue his dream of becoming a fashion designer in his spare time. Relationships and what could be seen as traditional gender roles ripple as fluidly as the muscles on a bull's back, as Mascaro immerses us in Iremar's world.

Excerpt from EyeForFilm located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: September 4th, 2015 (Venice Film Festival)

Reviews                                                                     More Reviews                                                                     DVD Reviews

 

Review: Second Run - Region FREE - Blu-ray

Box Cover

   

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Also available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber on the US:

  

Distribution Second Run - Region FREE - Blu-ray
Runtime 1:43:51.374   
Video

Disc Size: 37,172,893,797 bytes

Feature Size: 28,111,878,144 bytes

Average Bitrate: 29.97 Mbps

Dual-layered Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate:

Audio

DTS-HD Master Audio Portuguese 1944 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1944 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)
LPCM Audio Portuguese 2304 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit 
Subtitles English, None
Features

Release Information:
Studio: Second Run

Aspect Ratio:
Original Aspect Ratio 2.39:1

Disc Size: 37,172,893,797 bytes

Feature Size: 28,111,878,144 bytes

Average Bitrate: 29.97 Mbps

Dual-layered Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video

Edition Details:

• Interview with director Gabriel Mascarao (32:04)
• Extended 'Making of' featurette (24:52)

• Trailer (2:10)
• Booklet featuring writing on the film by Brazilian composer Caetano Veloso and Little White Lies editor-in-chief David Jenkins

 Blu-ray Release Date: April 16th, 2018
Transparent Blu-ray Case
Chapters: 12

 

 

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were obtained directly from the Blu-ray disc.

This new Second Run 1080P is advertised as a "Presented complete and uncut from a brand new transfer of the film! " and the 24fps Blu-ray transfer supports the film well. It is on a dual-layered disc with a high bitrate. It is in-and-around the 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Contrast and colors are at a premium - kudos to the art direction and cinematography by Diego García (Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Cemetery of Splendor.) Any softness or out-of-focus shots are intended and part of the original production.  

Second Run offer the option of a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround or DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo - both 16-bit in the original Portuguese language. There are some separations, but not overly aggressive although there are a couple of crisp surprises.  The impacting score is credited to Carlos Montenegro + Otavio Santos plus 2 pieces performed by Os Nonatos and another by Mastruz Com Leite. It sounds very deep in the lossless and has a dramatic effect on the presentation. There are optional English subtitles on Second Run's Region FREE Blu-ray.

Supplements include a 1/2 hour interview with director Gabriel Mascarao from a film festival in Norway. It was shot at the time on a mobile device and streamed live - so the quality of both audio and video is low but the director does cite it as one of his favorite interviews. It is in English. There is also an extended 'Making of' featurette running 25-minutes showing behind-the-scenes footage and it has English subtitles. There is also a trailer and the package has a liner notes booklet featuring writing on the film by Brazilian composer Caetano Veloso and Little White Lies editor-in-chief David Jenkins.

Neon Bull is wildly mysterious, graphic, sensual, shocking and a beautiful film. Ambiguous, yet one-dimensional, relationships are everywhere - cows, bulls, horses, a young girl, male cowhands, female 'performers', subservient, abused, manipulated... it speaks volumes without political regard or judgment. Second Run's Blu-ray package does a great job of presenting the very visual film in HD and they supply over an hour of extras. Absolutely recommended!

Gary W. Tooze

 

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Box Cover

   

CLICK to order from:

Also available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber on the US:

  

Distribution Second Run - Region FREE - Blu-ray



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