Reviews

This can sometimes be a challenging film. I don't mean it's boring, but it can get tedious at times. You get frustrated: Why don't they just leave that room? It seems like no one wants to for fear they will embarrass themselves or others, but as time progresses it becomes clear that no one can escape. There is some invisible force holding them there. Sheep can penetrate the invisible force, but the human inhabitants of the parlor room cannot. As time goes by their behavior degenerates. The upper-class manners they once employed are now useless. Bunuel said he didn't want there to be any symbols in the film, but it seems like he may have failed to a small degree in that the film itself looks to be like a commentary on etiquette and human sexuality.

The film portrays the capitalist establishment as a bunch of corrupt buffoons. Putney Swope, however, is different. It's a Horatio Alger story of a black man who finally made it to the top. However, Putney still has a few values that conflict with the capitalist status quo. He's not against making money, however. In fact, he's very good at it. But the difference is his values. He doesn't make ads for alcohol, tobacco or war toys. He has his principles. But eventually, capitalism wins and his greed takes over. He starts making ads that are sexist and eventually makes ads for war toys. After a schism with his radical Muslim friend his principles go down the tubes. It's a good commentary on the nature of capitalism and the role race plays in it.

After seeing this movie it made me think about the world in different ways. Ursula K. LeGuin says that science fiction is actually about the present. Some of the things in this film actually could happen in real life. Some other things are not within our realm of knowledge, but could be very soon. They are already working on downloading people's memories. Although there are hallucinations in the beginning, this film is not about the hallucinations. It is about a man's relationship with himself. I liked this film a lot. There were some obvious references to 2001, but I think this was done intentionally as a tribute to that film. For example, in the beginning he is seen running on a treadmill, the computer is clearly a parody of HAL and in the end he is seen traveling through space and vibrating with psychedelic colors, just like the end of 2001. All in all a well done film made by David Bowie's son.

On the box it put this film in the same company with greats like Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I completely disagree. For one thing, I was expecting to see at least a little gore in this film and there was almost none, other than a scene where the male character cuts himself shaving. For an "erotic" film, there was very little actual sex, apart from the first scene, which incidentally does not feature much nudity, and a shower scene. OK, so there wasn't much sex or violence, that doesn't mean it's a bad film. Some of the best films simply imply sex or violence. This however is not one of them. The acting is not bad, but the characters are written really flatly. The male character's mother who is dying of cancer is unconvincing. The wife is even less convincing. She doesn't seem to have any past at all. Where did these people meet? I still don't understand why the mother does not like the wife. The relationship between the vampire and her mistress is confusing. What is the mistress' purpose? It seems as though there is a symbiotic relationship, but what is the nature of that symbiosis? Overall, a disappointing film.

At first I was put off by the bad acting, but eventually I got used to it and was able to suspend my disbelief. The celebrities were the best part. I especially liked the scene with Elmore Silk's sister and brother in law who are in a dysfunctional relationship. I didn't understand the ending, however. Why would he sign a contract like that? That's the worst agreement I've ever heard of. In the end, however entertaining, this is just another of those on the road movies that Hollywood seems to crank out so much. I had a hard time figuring out who Joe Strummer played. Was he the son of the guy that locked him in the jail cell in their house?

The copy that I had of this film was very poorly transferred so I couldn't read the subtitles very well, so forgive me as this commentary may not be altogether accurate. As I see it Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol is about a man who is caught in the duality of things. He tries to do good, but ends up doing bad. He is called Satan at one point in the film. This duality reflects the duality of life. Who's to say what's good and what's bad? Are so-called priests who molest children people to be revered. Are these just a few rouges or is it the institution that is corrupt? In the face of injustice people have been known to do some terrible things. Communism, a reaction to the injustice of capitalism, lead to Stalinism and Maoism which became their own forms of oppression (the oxy-moron of the dictatorship of the proletariat). We see this resistance to the oppression of capitalism in the liberation theologist Saint Sebastian, but as many great leaders do, such as Jim Jones, power went to his head and he began preaching insane doctrines. At the same time, the catholic church sees the radical as dangerous, not because he is encouraging the people to leave Christianity (on the contrary, he preaches Christianity) but because he is disrupting the status quo and getting the people to think differently about their situation in life. In this way saint sebastian is very much a materialist, despite his Christianity. He preaches violence as a way of getting what you want and appeasement of the gods can mean material gain. Saint Sebastian is himself a paradox, and paradox is the theme of the film. We must ask ourselves, why was the title Black God, White Devil chosen for the English version of this film? Is the black god sebastian and the white devil the man who kills everybody towards the end (I never got his name)? I think the black god and white devil are the yin and the yang of existence: the very duality of man; the god and the devil within all of us.