Dry Ground Burning Review: A Fantastical, Genre-Blurring Act of Political Rebellion

Thanks in no small part to the unapologetically irate women that make up the criminal enterprise at its center, Dry Ground Burning has swagger to spare. In the bleak, crowded Sol Nascente favela of Brasilia, the eternally downtrodden Chitara (Joana Darc Furtado) finds her calling as the leader of an oil-smuggling operation composed of career criminals like herself—among them her half-sister, Léa (Léa Alves da Silva), who’s newly released from prison. The film’s dystopian depiction of Brazil is pitched somewhere between a vision of its future and a grim account of the country as it is today, and the elusiveness of that filmic presentation proves to be as radical as the narrative’s central matriarchal clan.

Throughout its nonlinear storyline, Dry Ground Burning imperceptibly hopscotches through time and across genre, and as such feels as if it exists in the past, present, and future—and as sci-fi tale and documentary—all at once. Cannily blending a chronicle of marginalized individuals and futuristic gangster drama, writer-directors Adirley Queirós and Joana Pimenta frequently stage the non-actors discussing their lives and difficulties while toiling in industrial milieus. And as the narrative unfolds, the film’s bold form consistently holds our fascination and often surprises by revealing deeper layers to both its subjects and social commentary.

Arguably the most notable of these moments comes after one of the extended heart-to-heart conversations between Chitara and Léa. Following their discussion on grappling with the allure of crime that grips individuals who live in Brazil’s poverty-stricken and opportunity-parched favelas, Chitara suddenly addresses the filmmakers via voiceover, speaking of how Léa was recently arrested and will miss out on her love of performing in the film.

The moment abruptly forces us to re-evaluate the very nature of Chitara and Léa’s enterprise. Initially appearing as a dystopian parable, the matriarchal smuggling operation is now reframed as a way for Chitara and her group to enact a fantasy of stealing from exploitative oil companies and subsequently selling the product back to the community on their own terms. Ironically, by allowing their subjects to dramatize a fictional crime story, Queirós and Pimenta have granted these lifelong criminals the very outlet away from crime they so desperately yearned for.

The film, though, is mercifully free of didacticism for one that offers an empowering portrayal of matriarchal systems and marginalized people. That, in part, is due to Queirós and Pimenta including an array of observational scenes of life in the Sol Nascente favela that may seem offhand at first but work to paint a shrewd, unsentimental, and palpable sense of that world.

The most distinctive moments are those that depict the dire forces that Chitara, Léa, and the other gang members are up against: Léa walking through a neighborhood demolished to make room for prisons; a police patrol van carrying heavily armed guards practicing a nationalistic pledge; and a pro-Bolsinaro rally where citizens eerily and fervently chant vows in unison. These snapshots of a militarized, oppressive land ominously conjures the encroaching doom that the gang feels on a daily basis, and subtly displays the factors that provoke their desire to steal from the kind of entities that continually prey on those who live in impoverished areas.

Dry Ground Burning’s layered moods and meanings help the film to earn the strange poignancy of one of its finest images. After hounding and corralling a police van with a group of bikers she does business with, Léa finishes by setting fire to the vehicle and leaving it to burn. The moment is one of startling violence, but also a moving grace note. Through the means of cinema, Léa, a long-downtrodden member of society, is able to fulfill one last fantasy of revenge against a brutal, unjust system by performing a vibrant and fantastical act of rebellion.