This weird 2019 Brazilian/French co-production was well received by critics at the time, and still has a high rating from viewers on RottenTomatoes.com. It won the Jury Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.
A very brief plot synopsis: the inhabitants of Bacurau, an isolated village in rural Brazil, find themselves in a fight for survival. A band of heavily armed Americans is apparently killing for thrills, as if they're in a video game, and the villagers decide to fight back. That plot sounds simple, but as it plays out it's a tangled knot of plot strands and a gradual spiral from straightforward storytelling to a violent and and almost surreal climax.
A CJ-3B is featured in one sequence in the middle of the film, when the bodies of some local people who have been shot are discovered.
The character Pacote, played by Thomas Aquino, loads two bodies into the back seat and heads out to find some help.
A blackout lamp on the front fender, and blackout taillights, make it obvious that this is a former Brazilian Army Jeep.
Pacote stops to signal to somebody that he's coming.
When we see the instruments on the dashboard it's clear that he's driving a pre-1957 Willys 3B, not a 1960s Kaiser M606.
Director Kleber Mendonça Filho has said that the visual style of Bacurau drew inspiration from both 1970s American westerns and Italian westerns of the 1960s.
The Jeep (seen on the left side of the frame) arrives at a dam which was built by a corrupt politician and has cut off Bacurau's water supply.
Pacote's plan is to convince the local revolutionaries who are hiding out at the dam, to come and help Bacurau fight the gang of killers.
He pulls back the softtop to reveal the bodies inside.
That night the villagers mourn the dead men and make plans to ambush the killers the next day.
Thanks to Moacir Pedrosa who told me about this film. -- Derek Redmond
Return to The CJ-3B in the Movies.
Visit CJ3B.info on Facebook.
CJ3B Home | Contents | Search | Links | 3A and 3B Community