Review: O Jacaré
by Olivia Popp
- Basil da Cunha’s fourth feature is his latest set in the Lisbon neighbourhood of Reboleira, where tensions run high as the community chases a pot of stolen money
A huge sum of stolen money is in Reboleira, and everyone is racing to find it – but just to add to the beautiful chaos, a crocodile has escaped and is on the prowl. In Basil da Cunha’s fourth feature, O Jacaré (the titular “crocodile”, in Portuguese), spirit oozes from every sweep of the camera as he looks to capture the humour, threats, misunderstandings, shock and glee that fly among his ensemble cast of many actors-cum-characters – who are drawn directly from the community and who have also played in his other films. O Jacaré has just had its world premiere in the Locarno International Competition.
The film is also his fourth out of four to be set in this heavily policed Lisbon barrio – with a large Cape Verdean diaspora – located on the outskirts of the city; it’s a place with which he has formed an unbreakable bond. The Swiss filmmaker with Portuguese roots has billed O Jacaré as the swan song of this neighbourhood, much of which is set to be systematically demolished and gentrified. From the start of the movie, we can already see traces of this in the form of torn-down brick walls and buildings, alongside the already-informal settlements.
The €180,000 in stolen money acts as a MacGuffin, with da Cunha sending us directly into the action to discover the complex web of relationships among characters. Charming local kingpin PC (Paulo César Lima Fonseca) takes the young, impressionable Chandi (Alexandre Fonseca) under his wing, sending him to infiltrate KP’s (Nelson Carvalho) gang to figure out where the money is hidden. Meanwhile, a determined Xana (Alexandra Sena) wants money that PC owes her husband, who is now in prison owing to PC’s activity. Sneaky players, ostensibly with knowledge of the stolen money, bob in and out of the story, including Machine (Pedro Diniz) and Mafia (Pedro Ferreira).
Over his filmography, da Cunha has developed quite a masterful cinematographic style (this film was lensed by Patrick Tresch) that winds and wanders almost completely freely through the neighbourhood (his 2023 short film 2720 is made up of just a few extremely long takes). It moves between characters without obstruction, even flying far above to capture Reboleira from a bird’s eye view, which disrupts the surveillance-tinged notion of watching from such a height; drones are shown to be flown innocently by Reboleira’s kids.
In the end, O Jacaré is more about the relationships forged, severed and betrayed, which together allow da Cunha to transform it into a sort of vibes film, set off by songs with Caribbean and Afropop beats. The filmmaker is relentless in his pace of depicting the interactions – the viewer might need to play catch-up, and at times, the confusion can be overwhelming over a very tight and jam-packed 90 minutes. Yet da Cunha is so clear in his intentionality and vision of transporting us directly into Reboleira; a popular comparison might even be Do the Right Thing. To not merely hear but also truly experience the gossip, the drama, the sadness and the joy – perhaps there is no better filmic privilege.
O Jacaré is a production by Switzerland’s Thera Production, co-produced by Portugal’s Continue Walking. Low Light Films has the rights to its world sales.
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