Le Dieu noir et le diable blond

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.

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.

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.

I saw this film on the premise of that it according to critics is the "best Brazilian film of all times". Critics are way too generous to this young auteur influenced by Eisenstein and other masters, mixing genres and styles but only achieving an amateurish, confused, pretentious and quite tasteless work. It is messy, low-budget and is overall not worth watching despite a handful of nice shots and moments. In an accompanying interview to the film, the director Rocha, with Marxist rhetoric, blame European colonists for Latin America's economic problems and justifies the movie's content as "the aesthetics of hunger". To me, more than anything else, it shows the madness of religion and cults and how they attract people in desperation.

This film begins wonderfully, brilliantly shot and keenly acted- but right as you're sure it's coming to a close, the music suddenly runs uptempo and the narrator says the equivalent of "Wait, there's more!" and the second segment of the film destroys any credibility the first might have established. The director's portrayal of the desert's harshness lends logically to the lunacy of the characters- but Rosa's actions in the second half seem completely unmotivated, as if the actors ran out of script and just start making things up out of boredom in front of the camera. Laudable attempts at Eisenstein-style multiple-repeat editing are a good idea but using them to cover the low-budget nature of the action scenes is not. Overall worth seeing, but I must warn you that I fell asleep towards the end.