User Reviews

Film from the first phase of Cinema Novo, directed by Ruy Guerra, with actors Átila Iório (Gaúcho), Maria Gladys (Luísa), Nelson Xavier (Mário), Paulo César Peréio (Pedro), Ivan Cândido (301), Hugo Carvana (José ) and Leonidas Bayer (Sergeant).

The film was shot in black and white, far from the studios, in the Bahian city of Milagres, a very poor and drought-ravaged place. It has the air of a documentary, especially when the residents of the city, who participate throughout the film, are focused and even interviewed. But at the same time, it has its fictional side, when professional actors are on stage.

Interesting how the mentality of the time, seen in the present day, is well reflected in the film. While the men, adults and a few children, stay in a bar in a bet with Pedro, one of the soldiers, where weapons, ammunition and cachaça are at the center of the bet, the women, and many children, are in prayer in the church, or following a blessed with an ox that he believes to be miraculous. Men and women with distinct separations of their "roles" in society. And there's still a scene where Mário tries to force a kiss on Luísa in a dark alley, even though she doesn't want to, ending up in a rape. Machismo and misogyny on the scene.

The plot: soldiers, sent by the police of Salvador, arrive in the city to protect food in the sale of the councilor (typical politician of the interior, like a colonel), while the population goes hungry. In this space of time, a blessed man arrives in the city with his holy ox and a truck driver (Gaucho), with a truck loaded with onions. The truck's wheel breaks down, causing Gaucho to stay in the city for more days. One of the soldiers, playing target shooting on a goat, kills a peasant, causing discomfort among the other fellow soldiers and an indignation of the local population, but without any uprising. Towards the end of the film, in a brief moment of action along the lines of a Western, Gaucho revolts over the death of a child from hunger, takes a soldier's rifle and tries to stop the trucks loaded with sacks of food from leaving the city.

A few points made me reflect:

1. It was a white man (most of the local population was black), from the south of the country, who showed some attitude to try to satisfy the hunger of the locals. Did it take a man from the south to try to solve the hunger issue in a northeastern city? But Gaucho's position is ambiguous from the start. He's macho, he almost buys a 14-year-old girl at a stop with his truck, he has a past as a soldier, at first, he doesn't rebel with the hunger that plagues Milagres, even having a truck loaded with rotting onions, for later , seeing the child dying of hunger, revolts.

2. how religion takes advantage of human misery to assert itself, like the blessed in the film with his promise of a miracle performed by his holy ox (despite the blessed's attitude towards the ox at the end of the film), received with branches of palm tree, as Jesus was received in Galilee, and being followed by a multitude.

3. Cinema Novo's filmmakers, with their leftist ideas, came from the middle class and made films for the middle class to consume, perpetuating the idea that peasants, especially those in the Northeast, were not capable of reacting. And I still wonder how much these residents, always with thanks in the film credits, were exploited in the filming. The question remains: did they receive a fee as extras, or even as non-professional actors?

Despite these considerations above, I really enjoyed the movie, being the first time I watched it.