Another movie from the first phase of Cinema Novo that I watched for the course I'm taking, online, at Cinema com Teoria. This time, Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, written and directed by Glauber Rocha, with actors Geraldo del Rey (Manuel), Yoná Magalhães (Rosa), Othon Bastos (Corisco), Maurício do Valle (Antônio das Mortes), Lídio Silva (Sebastião) and Sônia dos Humildes (Dadá).
Filmed in black and white in the interior of Bahia, in the municipality of Monte Santo, far from the studios. The population of the Bahian city participates as an extra in the film. Lígia Pape is responsible for the typography of the signs and credits.
Manuel, to defend what is his and his wife, kills the owner of the land where he works, which leads him to leave the region, going to Monte Santo to follow the blessed Sebastião. There, he is indoctrinated into the sect and becomes convinced that his wife, Rosa, is possessed by the devil. Rosa's purification scene is a carnage, with the sacrifice of an innocent in the name of a bad god. There follows a real massacre undertaken by Antônio das Mortes, who spares only Manuel and Rosa, who continue wandering through the sertão, being led by a blind man, who takes them to meet Corisco and Dadá, remnants of Lampião and Maria Bonita's gang, who had recently been murdered by the Bahian police. Manuel joins the gang. There are looting and rape in the city, until Antônio das Mortes arrives at the place where Corisco, Dadá, Rosa and Manuel are. The meeting is busy, with scenes that look like a western.
It was the third time I saw this movie. The interesting thing is that I see it, without planning, every twenty years. The first of them was in the 1980s, in Belo Horizonte, on VHS tape, just dazzled by the cinema, wanting to see everything that was classic film. I didn't like what I saw. The second, already in the first decade of the 2000s, in Brasília, in a projection for young people between 16 and 25 years old, was a project related to my work. In the room, in a public school, there were about 30 teenagers. As the film progressed, more and more young people left the room. There was only two of them left at the end of the film.
On this occasion, I had new eyes for the film, making a more accurate analysis of the time in which it was filmed (before the 1964 coup), the agrarian question, the messianism that took advantage of the ignorance and simplicity of the interior population, especially the Northeast. But I still had reservations about the film itself.
Finally, in 2022, I saw him for the third time. More studied, seeing technical details, observing the set of social situations of the time, reading texts about Cinema Novo in preparation for the class on the sertão trilogy that would be taught, online, at Cinema com Teoria, on 02/03 /2022, I've already started to like the movie a little more, but it still doesn't make me enthusiastic. I get very uncomfortable in the chair for any movie that has excessive noise. And that's what happens in Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, the noise bothers me, whether because of the litany of the faithful who follow the blessed, or because of Rosa's screaming, which is confused with the wind in the place, or by the shots of the shotguns, or by the racket of Corisco's flock.
When writing these lines, I wondered if the intention was really to cause discomfort in those who watch the film. If not for the images, or for the script, then for the sound. It may even be, when it comes to Glauber Rocha.
Filmed in black and white in the interior of Bahia, in the municipality of Monte Santo, far from the studios. The population of the Bahian city participates as an extra in the film. Lígia Pape is responsible for the typography of the signs and credits.
Manuel, to defend what is his and his wife, kills the owner of the land where he works, which leads him to leave the region, going to Monte Santo to follow the blessed Sebastião. There, he is indoctrinated into the sect and becomes convinced that his wife, Rosa, is possessed by the devil. Rosa's purification scene is a carnage, with the sacrifice of an innocent in the name of a bad god. There follows a real massacre undertaken by Antônio das Mortes, who spares only Manuel and Rosa, who continue wandering through the sertão, being led by a blind man, who takes them to meet Corisco and Dadá, remnants of Lampião and Maria Bonita's gang, who had recently been murdered by the Bahian police. Manuel joins the gang. There are looting and rape in the city, until Antônio das Mortes arrives at the place where Corisco, Dadá, Rosa and Manuel are. The meeting is busy, with scenes that look like a western.
It was the third time I saw this movie. The interesting thing is that I see it, without planning, every twenty years. The first of them was in the 1980s, in Belo Horizonte, on VHS tape, just dazzled by the cinema, wanting to see everything that was classic film. I didn't like what I saw. The second, already in the first decade of the 2000s, in Brasília, in a projection for young people between 16 and 25 years old, was a project related to my work. In the room, in a public school, there were about 30 teenagers. As the film progressed, more and more young people left the room. There was only two of them left at the end of the film.
On this occasion, I had new eyes for the film, making a more accurate analysis of the time in which it was filmed (before the 1964 coup), the agrarian question, the messianism that took advantage of the ignorance and simplicity of the interior population, especially the Northeast. But I still had reservations about the film itself.
Finally, in 2022, I saw him for the third time. More studied, seeing technical details, observing the set of social situations of the time, reading texts about Cinema Novo in preparation for the class on the sertão trilogy that would be taught, online, at Cinema com Teoria, on 02/03 /2022, I've already started to like the movie a little more, but it still doesn't make me enthusiastic. I get very uncomfortable in the chair for any movie that has excessive noise. And that's what happens in Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, the noise bothers me, whether because of the litany of the faithful who follow the blessed, or because of Rosa's screaming, which is confused with the wind in the place, or by the shots of the shotguns, or by the racket of Corisco's flock.
When writing these lines, I wondered if the intention was really to cause discomfort in those who watch the film. If not for the images, or for the script, then for the sound. It may even be, when it comes to Glauber Rocha.