121 / BD 11 Neon Bull

[Ribs]

From Second Run's website:

Neon Bull
(Boi Neon)
A film by Gabriel Mascaro
Brazil, 2015

Gabriel Mascaro's sensual, subversive feature 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.

"Neon Bull is a profound reflection on the intersection of the human and bestial... exalts carnal passion in beautiful, almost sculptural love scenes" New York Times
"Wild, sensual and transporting" Indiewire

ON BLU-RAY AND DVD 2018

[zedz]

This is a really lovely film, much better than it sounds from any description I've read. Buy it!

[Big Ben]

Interesting. I have a lot of very good friends from Brazil. I'll ask them about this one.

[Cremildo]

It's a film that deconstructs and even inverts basically every stereotype of the Nordeste people who work in vaquejadas. I wasn't enamored of it, but it's great to see a respectable foreign label tackling Brazilian cinema.

[knives]

Yeah, I wouldn't call it a great film (the ending is generic arthouse silliness), but what it does right it does in a fairly great way.

[AidanKing]

Jonathan Romney seemed to be impressed with Neon Bull in his review for the Film Comment website and there is an interesting interview with Gabriel Mascaro in Cinema Scope.

[Ribs]

Now available to order from Amazon, releasing 16 April

[soundchaser]

The cover art for this is now up on Second Run’s Facebook page. It’s gorgeous.

[Bikey]

Pre-order now £14.99 at Amazon UK
Or in HMV UK's 2-for-£25 Blu-ray promotion

[Bikey]

"NEON BULL is wildly mysterious, graphic, sensual, shocking and a beautiful film... 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!"

Beaver

[senseabove]

Not to stop anyone from supporting Second Run, but for anyone in the US who wants to preview this, it's on Netflix.

[Bikey]

“Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro’s iridescent, intoxicating brew of eroticism, masculine crisis and rodeo culture never got the UK cinema release it deserved; now is its time to be found.”

Guy Lodge at The Guardian on NEON BULL

[Bikey]

"A combination of slice-of-life character study and eye-popping surreal art film...
Always adventurous and full of surprises, UK label Second Run brings this film to Blu-ray and DVD in a beautiful presentation [...] Colors are bold and provide real eye candy where it counts, with an impressive level of detail and depth throughout; the Brazilian LPCM audio also sounds immaculate."

Mondo Digital on NEON BULL

[Bikey]

"It’s a thoroughly absorbing, eye-opening work of art... and one that transcends the medium in a fashion we rarely see."

STARBURST Magazine review Gabriel Mascaro's NEON BULL

[Bikey]

... this is a film muscular in its execution, but one whose depths go far beyond such categories and resound long after its conclusion. Mascaro was only 32 when he finished it: we are sure to be hearing much more of him in the future.

says Tom Birchenough at The Arts Desk