A Idade da Terra

This must be a work of a genius or a work of a madman who knows more than we poor mortals can possibly know. Glauber Rocha and his "A Idade da Terra" ("The Age of the Earth") is more than its images and words and speeches. It is a masterpiece from Brazil's cinema, an experimental film that challenges its viewers, gives something to think about and leaves wonderful moments in your head.

First of all, there's no plot although it has characters, figures, and actors performing them in repetitive monologues and in strange situations. The director explains to us that he wanted to make a film about Christ on a primitive world like Brazil, he conceived this idea after hearing about Pasolini's murder, guess he remembered some of his works. What we see is four Christs divided traveling through Brazil and spreading God's message to the desperate and hungry people of the third world, summoning all the people to a Third World revolution to help all the underprivileged people of Asia, Africa and Americas to get together and help each other. There's a Military Christ, a Black Christ, a Indian Christ and a Revolutionary Christ and they seem to fight against a diabolic figure named Brahms (Mauricio do Valle) that wants to rule the world. This is my view from the film, it might not be the same as yours, so feel free to watch a very philosophical and meaningful film.

In "A Idade da Terra" there's culture, religion, political speeches, the director's own voice and presence (on and off screen; on screen teaching an actor how to play his role; off screen you can hear his voice shouting at actors to speak their lines louder, one example is the famous moment where he shouts "Speak up Danuza" and his poetic perception of the world, explained in a long monologue explaining the film and the history of the world, very interesting). And what can be interesting too or not depending on your patience is that Glauber selected actors moments that are shown over and over again, some outtakes where the actors say the same lines multiple times (Tarcisio Meira and his lines about the destruction of the world).

The eternal revolutionary writer-director-producer Glauber Rocha makes important statements about the History of Brazil, a reminder that we should love and respect our country no matter what happens; and in each scene you can sense this pride, not only with words but in its images presenting a country beautifully filmed, very vivid. Sadly, this was his last film, he died in 1981, leaving an impressive filmography and being one of the greatest directors of all time, in Brazil and in the world. Once again he had a camera in the hand and an idea in the head (this is the slogan of the filmmakers of Cinema Novo "New Cinema" of which Glauber was his most expressive and important figure).

It's almost like watching a Godard film, there's a political message mixed with something that might be a plot and other things but in the end you get the whole picture and can make an idea of what it is and what it means. I must confess that I walked out of this film after ten minutes on my first view, it was just images without coherence I thought at the time, but something was keep calling me to watch it again and I did. Time makes you understand more of things and enjoy more experiences and this film is a memorable and positive experience. I know it's not for everyone, it's almost a impenetrable work but it has many things to show. See it if you can! 10/10

What is the use of a message if it is transmitted so that it will turn away most people? When did cinema stop being also about entertaining? If I make a movie, especially one with a strong message, I want it to be watched by as many people as possible. Otherwise, what is the point in making it? I could/should write a book instead. If Glauber Rocha really thought his movies would change people's cinematic taste, he was wrong. Aesthetics, good acting, good dialogues, etc., are still (and I think will always be) important. Rocha is not a cinema genius. He is the opposite. A cinema genius combines all elements of a movie to make it interesting and memorable on many levels, not only one (the message). Ingmar Bergman anyone? I think Rocha was just a crazy guy without talent, but with a political message, who thought he could/should make movies.

"A idade da terra" is both suggestive and abstract. It stimulates a divine satisfaction, its rewarding but overly unstructured, annoyingly insane, and punishingly long. The film presents a whole state of mind, a mind that believe in the greatness of religion, its supreme purposes, to bring hope, meaning, answer's, strive. The worship of a superhuman controlling power, a personal kingdom of god within every man. If religion never existed: the Pyramids would never exist, world history would never exist. All the grandest achievements of mankind would cease from the earths surface. If religion didn't exist everything would change. Countries, languages, fashion, politics. Religion was what gave revolution for the renaissance. Religion gave birth to science. Its the source of morality, thy what is good, thy what is evil. Religion is the best placebo. The very idea of a miracle gives people hope, when acceptance gives death. It shows christ in a underdeveloped but modern part of the "Third World" . Christ - a primitive phenomenon in a very primitive, very new civilisation.

Rocha's last film is a culmination of his avant-garde cinematic language, portraying Brazil in a series of scenes, painting a cinematographic postcard of the country with a barrage of dances, parties, songs, theatrics, discussions and speeches on Brazil's history and politics, religious scenes, with passionate actors as society's archetypes. Bizarre performances in a world of war and peace. Freedom and slavery. A world of Black man, white man. Devil and God. The new world, the old world. Glauber sees the world changing as its core of the wretched Earth shrivels into darkness, he knows the world must evolve for if it did not it would become dust. Possessed by a demon - his heart screams, his vocal chords hum. If only it were the reverse. "A Idade da terra" = The last warcry from a revolutionary director.

"This film is a portrait of Brazil and of myself", stated director Glauber Rocha about his final film "A Idade da Terra", in an interview shortly before his sudden death in 1981, at 42, of pneumonia. "Idade..." is his grand epitaph: here you'll find the best and worst of Glauber's exuberant, allegoric, compulsive, revolutionary, verbose, ambitious and very individual style. There is no story-line: it's a collage of long scenes (mostly improvised) with the purpose of "reinventing Brazilian cinematic art, in the same way Villa-Lobos did with Brazilian music, Portinari and Di Cavalcanti did with Brazilian painting". Some have called it an "anti-symphony", where cinematic "noise" and "cacophony" would be part of a revolutionary artistic style. He was outraged by the fact that mainstream cinema still followed 19th-century literary paradigms (the predominance of dialog, narrative and plot over formal experiments) and wanted the movies to "finally enter the 20th century", to be as ground- breaking as the modernist painting movements. Glauber's original project for "Idade..." included having the 16 reels of the film being presented at random order, at the discretion of each projectionist in each movie session, never actually put into practice (the copy we see in VHS today is in the same order he screened at the Venice Film Festival).

"Idade..." had a long troubled genesis, as it began in 1978 and was only finalized two years later. Glauber was at the time a walking paradox: he was Brazil's most prestigious filmmaker on an international level, admired by Bertolucci, Godard and Buñuel; he had revolutionized Brazilian cinema at 24 y.old with his 2nd feature "Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol" (1964) becoming the leader of the Brazilian New Wave ("Cinema Novo"), creating a whole new aesthetics for third- world cinema, consolidated in his famous manifesto "Estética da Fome" (The Hunger Aesthetics). He had won two big prizes at Cannes (best director in 1969 for "Antonio das Mortes", and the Jury Prize for his 1977 iconoclast short "Di Cavalcanti"). And yet, by 1978 he was completely broke: he couldn't get financing, as his films were highly controversial and commercially unsuccessful. By then, he was in the habit of verbally attacking film critics and powerful media corporations, which didn't help matters. He was also living a private hell, as he -- a militant leftist -- was shunned by a league of important artists and intellectuals for expressing "sympathy" for the military regime in a 1975 controversial interview, as well as for hailing the new Pope (John Paul II), and was thought to be mentally disturbed. Still, he managed to raise enough money to buy a good amount of film stock and began shooting frantically with a shoe-string budget (he filmed a total of 36 hours, which he reluctantly reduced to the final version of 140 minutes).

Urgency is the key word here: it's as if he prophetically sensed this would be his last film. Glauber points his intellectual machine-gun at a multitude of themes: capitalism, militarism, imperialism, revolutionarism, Marxism, racism, sexism, religion and religious myths, pollution, the bourgeoisie, politicians, etc. Visually, the film has tints of cinéma-vérité (in the crowd scenes), expressionism (the 15-minute opening sequence representing the massacre of native indigenous peoples) and cubism (in some sequences, ALL the takes are included one after the other). Glauber's idea of acting was measured in decibels: not only the actors shout all the time, but he himself yells directions off-screen at the actors with his booming voice ("Fala mais alto, Danuza!!!").

"Idade…" is one of the last films to "believe" in avant-garde, experimental, uncompromising art films (as opposed to the omnipresent sense of commercialism we witness today, even from beginning filmmakers). It's from the days when films with political statements and philosophical discussions were welcome and relevant, when intellectual complexity was a plus and not "boring stuff". "Idade..." doesn't strive to be coherent, logical, accessible, entertaining: Glauber wants to provoke bewilderment and discomfort – and he certainly succeeds. It's a film of excesses: it's overlong, overly repetitive, overly digressive. It's a loud film from a loud man who didn't believe in subtlety. Glauber didn't even bother to write down his voice-over comments in "Idade...": he goes on and on ad libbing, thinking out loud in messianic speeches that are alternately lucid and maddeningly over the top. His famous inability to be succinct – both in films and real life – pays a price in his last film and it's no wonder that, by the end of the movie, we feel exhausted.

This is a film for audiences not afraid of experimentalism and controversy -- it's mandatory viewing for all interested in Glauber Rocha and as perhaps the last breath of Brazilian "Cinema Novo" movement. DO NOT watch this if you like conventional story-telling, clarity and subtlety. For the curious, open-minded, patient viewer, trust me: you've never seen a film quite like this.

Given the difficulties he faced in assembling money to make films, and the obscurity of those he did manage to make, Rocha's outspoken media presence had been his major role since 1969 at least, and it now entered into the films. This is a key weakness: a kind of egoic messianism, losing more and more political sense as he praised military dictators, with scenarios for ambitious films which could, in all likelihood, never be made. Both epic summation of Rocha's career and an incoherent end-of-the-line, 'A Idade' is like almost nothing else in cinema. We find one more the allegorical figures whose interactions are epic and poetic rather than realist, though we're also presented with near-documentary scenes, interviews and chaotic, seemingly improvised moments which appear closer to performance art (or, to be less kind, amateur theatre). Rocha claimed that the reels of the film could be shown in any order-history as linear order is firmly rejected for the repetitions and non-sequiturs that are held in place by mythic overlays which at the same time provide the fulfilment and solution to history. Is this a mystical escape from reality, the result of political impasse? Absolutely. But at times it's no less breath-taking for that.

The allegorical forces this time are four 'Christs' who are also the four horsemen of the apocalypse, St George, and so on, and their female counterparts-Aurora (sunrise is an important figure for the film), Magdalena, the queen of the Amazons. A businessman-imperialist, the hulking and Aryan 'John Brahms' staggers through the city in hysterical displays of sadistic power. These figures move around in public spaces in sequences that appear improvised, shot amongst traffic or in crowd scenes with puzzled onlookers, or in cramped interiors with Rocha's own voice shouting offscreen at the actors to scream their lines 'ten times louder'. Rocha further destabilises time by often including multiple takes of the same lines, repeated as many as five times-the 'military Christ' sitting in front of a café and proclaiming that, even if he uses violence and ignores human rights, he upholds essential 'spiritual' rights-and what would appear to be 'outtakes'-Brahms collapsing and apologising to Glauber for his weaknesss; Rocha's infant daughter banging at a piano. The shifting alliances of the film's allegorical figures, in their gendered pairings and their various speeches, provide uneasy mapping of betrayal, power and, at times, possibility. The gringo imperialist, Brahms, appears perpetually on the verge of collapse, yet that collapse never comes: political stasis is the overwhelming feel, despite the surge of action and event and the promises to provide a more democratic future Brazil, couched in the language of mystical, syncretic Christianity. This is a paradoxical teleology without end in its interchangeable reels, the film can have no conclusion. In what is probably the film's key sequence, Rocha yells out an incoherent voiceover speech to footage of the 'Black Christ' as St George, holding aloft a garish Expressionist icon of the crucified Christ, in which he claims the ultimate political ambition should be to defeat death itself. Rocha's voiceover-which, in its halting pauses and streams of language, sounds improvised rather than scripted-explains the genesis of the film as a life of Christ inspired by Pasolini's murder. Pasolini serves as the corpse from which a new, third world Christ can emerge, as Rocha preaches an incoherent political gospel in which a transformed Christianity serves as the beacon of global hope, along with a vision of Brazilian 'democracy' that functions beyond 'capitalism, socialism, communism'. This utopian, ultimately nonsensical vision-which also claims that the ultimate political ambition must be to defeat death itself-has to be expressed in manifesto-like words in order to give some coherence to what see onscreen, even as the film itself seeks for a visual 'trance' based on fragments of language, overwhelming and jarringly intercut blasts of sound, from Villa Lobos to carnival music and improvised free jazz, that rejects the cohesion Rocha's speech seeks to impose. The whole film is a total blaze of overkill-too loud, too long, with the maximum of excess as fundamental methodogical starting point-that cannot and does not end. Ismail Xavier call this the limits of national allegory as methodology-while apparently mythic structure presented in Rocha's previous films is ultimately grounded in a historical basis, it fails when it comes to the present of the 1980s, of a decade lived under military dictatorship. Rocha in essence admits as such in his voiceover description of the utopian city project of Brasilia, an analogy, it would seem, for his own film: "strong irradiation, light of the Third World, a metaphor that doesn't come true in history, but meets a feeling of greatness, the vision of paradise". This is a matter of faith: but faith, while it might at times seem the only possible way to survive a dictatorship with no end in sight, is hardly adequate on its own. Unable to account for the profusion of elements brought into the audience's view, 'A Idade' asserts the positive force of Brazilian syncretism against the violence embedded in its history and as a way beyond the crippling underdevelopment fostered by American imperial interests in the region. But this nationalism-even if it seeks to counter the mendacious nationalisms of religious and military power-ultimately cannot see a way out of them, falling prey to a disunited model of national unity that veers near to complicity with the repressive forces that governed the nation, against which Glauber might at times have staked his life.