About halfway through SXSW this year I became aware that an action movie co-directed by City of God’s Fernando Meirelles, set in a post-apocalyptic Rio De Janeiro, was playing at the historic Paramount theater in downtown Austin. It was sort of like this for me, and became my most anticipated film of the festival after not having been on my radar at all:
Beast Race lived up to my self-generated hype as a standout in a well-trodden genre. Nothing can or ever will be again Mad Max: Fury Road or The Road Warrior. George Miller reigns undisputed in the cinema of the post apocalypse. But as a life long devotee of Max Rockatansky I’ve gone down just about every rabbit trail of post apocalyptic movie cinema has to offer me. And I’m most definitely buying what Beast Race is selling.
Within dystopian or full on post-apocalyptic films, there’s a pretty strongly defined subgenre of sports movies within the end times. From Rollerball to Running Man to Hunger Games in the more dystopian futures, there are often wholly unique games created to appease and control the masses in stories like these. Specifically within the post apocalypse, you’ve got Salute of the Jugger aka Blood of Heroes, or, to a lesser extent, Solarbabies (the roller blade post apocalypse), among others.
I bring up all of this to discuss the variety of ways in which Beast Race really works in a host of different ways, while not necessarily redefining a genre so much as playing very effectively within several pre-existing subgenres.
First off, if you’re going to create a sport from whole cloth in your movie, it’s going to be important to establish the rules and functionality of that game within the movie itself in a compelling way that gets you into the game as though you’re a fan of the sport. Hell, F1 did this pretty well this past year for a sport that actually does exist, but which still needed to explain itself to the audience. Here, in a world decimated by a “great catastrophe” 45 years ago, you get stunning vistas of a Rio De Janeiro with no water, surrounded by seas of sand littered with abandoned boats. Out of this hell has emerged a banned game called, you guessed it, Beast Race. Poverty-stricken contestants living in the favelas compete as “beasts” in a parkour-flavored foot race with wealthy “players” sponsoring them, broadcasting the races, and requiring a “collateral” of a human being close to the beast who will be taken into slavery by the players if and when these gladiatorial style beasts don’t win. So, while the Beast Race is technically banned, both the rich and the poor are bound up in the game with life and death consequences.
City Of God’s Fernando Meirelles isn’t the only director here. In fact, there are three, with Rodrigo Pesavento and Ernesto Solis also helming. This trio builds a unique visual world, quickly draws us into this exciting sport, and connects us emotionally to the stakes that most of our main characters are dealing with here. So not only do they nail the “made up sport” dynamic, they also bring in important realities of class struggle and political machinations, which are always important in post apocalypse films so that they resonate with us today. One can’t help but wrestle with their complicity in the dominant system they exist in, and themes like that resonate particularly strongly from Brazilian storytellers to this American audience member as both of our countries either battle against or fall victim to authoritarianism rising.
Here our primary protagonist is Mano (Matheus Abreu), who lives in a particularly poor walled off zone of the city. He’s a bit of a masked vigilante known as “the hunter”, who will capture any beast runner who attempts to cross through their neighborhood during a race as a form of protest against the exploitative game. His own mother was once claimed by the players as a slave after his father ran as a beast and lost. So, while he’s strongly anti-Beast Race, his sister Dalva (Thaina Duarte) is tired of the abject poverty and through some back and forth, manages to get herself captured as collateral and Mano must enter the Beast Race as Cat. Rodrigo Santoro’s character Abu is a former beast himself who has become rich and sponsors Mano/Cat, but also lords over a harem, which he wants to add Dalva to if Cat loses. And meanwhile Cat’s “player” is Nadine (Isis Valverde), who appears elite and powerful and is married to the most dominant wealthy player in Rio. But she’s also a former collateral who is more owned by her husband than married to him. So, with Nadine looking to prove/free herself by coaching Cat to victory, and with Cat racing to save his sister from slavery, the stakes are well laid out for our characters, for the audience, and the ideals and political realities are also laid bare.
Finally, I’ll simply point out that Beast Race not only nails the sport of it all, and the world building and character stakes and politics, but it also captures the action in dramatic fashion. These races are thrilling and elicited cheers and applause from our SXSW audience. Drones are used to great effect to capture some thrilling parkour-style foot races. Parkour has always been innately cinematic in my estimation, and employing drones to capture it creates fluid, gods-eye access. Then throw in some brutal capoeira-style martial arts in the midst of these high speed gladiatorial foot chases, and you’re seeing a blend of action elements unique to Brazil, and unique to audiences anywhere as far as I can recall. Then package that all together with a strong sense of place and choreography, and the race to the finish line becomes executed pretty damn flawlessly.
Beast Race is playing within well established subgenres and tropes. But it brings a high level of quality to everything it attempts, and adds a Brazilian specificity and flair to create a highly watchable new entry in the post apocalyptic cinematic pantheon. The film sets up a sequel while still coming to a satisfying conclusion in its own right, and I would gladly welcome further adventures on the Beast Race circuit as long as it continues to infuse that Brazilian flavor and class rage that made this one so compelling.
And I’m Out.
