The mockumentary has been a staple in comedy for years, often satirising pop culture staples or zeitgeisty topics. Brazilian film Abducted Files takes a light-hearted swing at every UFO documentary currently clogging the schedules of satellite television channels, or lurking in the bowels of our streaming services.
Presented as a real investigation, a presenter assembles footage from a 2016 documentary that was abandoned after a tragic incident. 30 years after Brazil’s Night Of The UFOs (a real event in 1986), author Dr Nelson Akerman assembled a team of ufologists as well as a camera crew in order to investigate the site where many alien interactions were reported. As the investigation goes on, the footage shows the team hitting many dead ends, until Deoclecio Teixeira, a man who claims to have been anally probed by aliens, appears to be the real deal.
With a low budget and even lower brown humour, the film embraces the same anarchic spirit as something like What We Do In The Shadows (Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, 2014), mixing a grounded documentary feel with absurd twists and turns. The humour tends to be quite lewd – many investigations the team makes turn out to be misinterpreted sexual situations, such as a potential alien site being revealed as a swinger’s house. It’s somewhat broad but delivered with a lightness that makes it playful rather than gratuitous.
Rather than mock the idea of UFOs, the target here are the social complexes that tend to orbit the phenomena, and the desire of those to believe. People who willingly share elaborate, graphic stories of their encounters are those that are satirised, as well as the pomposity of the “professionals” investigating (the presenter who narrates the incident from a desk of monitors has a hilarious unblinking stare reminiscent of American paranormal hosts). As if to heighten the ridiculous nature of the quest, Akerman is wearing quite obvious latex makeup that no one references, adding to the sense that everything is not to be taken seriously.
Abducted Files can be blunt in its comic delivery, but its fast pace and sharp interaction between the cast (credited as their characters) make it a fun experience. A joyful ribbing of those who chase the unknown, which will ring true to anyone who has watched the pseudoscientific shows this film lampoons.
Abducted Files sees its world premiere during the 33rd edition of Raindance, which takes place from June 18th to 27th.
