Black God, White Devil

This movie is considered by the critics as the most important Brazilian movie of all times. And they are right in this point. An impressive, outstanding portrait of Brazilian rich culture with a focus on some delicate subjects as religion, faith, violence and economic exploration. Rocha made here a fantastic synthesis of the main problems of Brazil, problems that still remained almost forty years after. Great performances by Del Rey and Mauricio do Valle.

Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol isn't just a good Brazilian movie. This is an actual masterpiece, compared to the big ones in the history of cinema. It's not a boring and too regional film, but deals with universal aspects of human nature, such as blind devotion, love, hate, and all kinds of misery. Glauber Rocha, with only 22 years, made a mix of Eisenstein, Italian neo-realism and nouvelle-vague, under a background of cordel literature (our pulp fictions). The Mauricio do Valle character, Antonio das Mortes, is fundamentally a European western anti-hero, and certainly inspired Leone, Corbucci and others in the development of their scripts. The soundtrack, with Villa Lobbos and Rocha&Ricardo songs, matches perfectly with the dry landscape of the Brazilian Northeast. In short, Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol must be known. If you have open mind and like great cinema, and not just the popcorn no-brain north-American blockbusters, try this one.

Glauber Rocha just 25 when he made this and I was only seven year younger although I had never watched this before but maybe then I might have loved it more but now I find it rather difficult. Clearly I can see that it is an amazing idea but punishing to have done this in Monte Santo, Bahia this drought-ridden hinterland of the North-East of Brazil. Manoel has killed his cheating ranch owner and then his mother dies and he and his wife go off to follow a self proclaimed saint. It is slow, and Christ like but also much violence. Although there is even more to come. It is difficult watching Manoel climb up the mountain on his knees and with a 20 kilo stone on his head and apparently the actor decided he should really do it. I found that during this part I thought of Bunuel with Simon of the Desert (1965) and his man on a column. Towards the end with the last few people moving between each other and I thought of Michelangelo Antonioni. Now and again I wondered about Jodorowsky's El Topo (1970), however this film is on its own and even if it is a bit slow it is surely worth a look.

"We can't do justice by shedding more blood."

This film takes place in roughly 1938-40, a period of political instability in Brazil during the early part of the Estado Novo, when Getulio Vargas had cemented his dictatorship after successfully overturning the election result of 1930. However, given the military coup that happened just months before it was released, obviously another period of great unrest which ushered in a new 21-year dictatorship, it seems like it must have had a lot of additional meaning for Brazilians at the time. As the 1964 coup against a free and fair election was supported by America, and as more recently Trump not only paved the way for Bolsonaro but is now doing everything he can to have him exonerated (for which I apologize as an American to my Brazilian friends), I found added meaning in how depressingly timeless the themes are here, even if the content seems so specific to the 1930's and the form is a blend of 1950's neorealism with 1960's New Wave.

The poor couple at the center of this film are trying to eke out a living in the harsh sertao (arid backcountry) of Northeast Brazil, and like poor people everywhere, are preyed upon by everyone. Their descent into going rogue begins when their rich employer threatens to use the law to cheat them out of their wages after some of his cows die being driven to market. In an act of anger, the man kills his employer and goes on the run. The couple is taken in by a would-be holy man who promises deliverance and miracles, but is more than a little cruel to the people who flock to him. Later they join a group of cangaceiros (bandits) led by a man who promises to fight against the "evil giant" of the Republic, but he's deranged and also a rapist and murderer, making it hard to feel swayed by his revolutionary speeches. The film is a testament to how brutal conditions and poverty lead to terrible things.

In the middle segment, I thought it was pretty telling that both sides were using (or perverting) religion to push for violence for their side. The miracle man preys on superstition and makes his new follower prove his devotion by putting a giant stone on his head and walking on his knees up a mountain. It gets worse when he asks him to sacrifice his baby, resulting in a brutal scene. Meanwhile the local priest, out of a threat to the status quo and the loss of revenue from baptisms and weddings, doesn't say hey, I wonder how I can understand or help those people, he calmly puts out a hit on the other holy man, something that results in a massacre.

It's interesting to note that the bandits are led by Corisco, a real-life cangaceiro who was killed in 1940. He was the subordinate of the most famous cangaceiro, Lampiao, who he references as having just died (which happened in 1938), so we can fix the rough time period of the film from that. With their distinctive fashion and ostensibly fighting for the poor, there is a certain romance to these rebels, but that dissipates when we see them murdering people. In one scene they loot a house, rape the woman, and convince the protagonist to cut off the man's penis, which he goes along with, just as went along with killing his own baby. It was this cruel immorality that kept me from really feeling the power of the line "If I die, another will be born," or truly connecting with these characters.

The ending is absolutely brilliant though. Let down by the wealthy, the church, and the rebels, the poor man runs through the desert towards the sea, as if in a desperate search of some other path to a solution, while the waves roll ashore indifferent to the human drama. I almost raised my review score because of it, but overall the grim reality of this film left me cold. The pace was also often too ponderous, and the storytelling didn't keep up with the fantastic visuals. Well worth seeing though, minimally for its place in Brazilian film history.

I loved the first two-thirds of this jaw-dropping epic. For my second viewing, this time with a friend, we both agreed that it fell to pieces after that point, becoming incoherent and unfathomable, whilst still being stylish and remaining 'strange'.

The visual sense was part 'Aguirre, Wrath of God' and Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in the West'. But, in grainy, high contrast black & white. Camera movements are urgent rather than flowing with the odd editing flourish to enliven the action. We both found this approach initially utterly mesmerising.

This film is of hardcore fanaticism, with religious bigotry and the sheer survival in the harsh scrub desert-lands of northern Brazil. Some scenes are reminiscent of Russian cinematic masterpieces by Eisentstein, as in Ivan the Terrible. I think some scenes will offend and appal many viewers whilst still retaining mystery and that 'Wow, this is something totally different and exciting'. The sort of film that has the critics swooning but with the actual film-lover rather less than overawed.

I'd rather not go into all the narrative in and outs, mostly because it is the overall effect and impression that it has left on me. Unforgettable, true; daring and significant, undoubtedly. But that doesn't make it a film any easier to watch, though. I would give the first two thirds 9/10 and the remainder five.