Black God, White Devil (Rocha, 1964): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.10pm
This film (being shown on May 16th, 29th and 30th) is part of the Brazilian Cinema season at BFI Southbank. You can find the details here.
Time Out review:
Glauber Rocha's
first major film introduced most of the methods, themes and even
characters that were developed five years later in his Antonio das
Mortes. Set in the drought-plagued Brazilian Sertao in 1940, it explores
the climate of superstition, physical and spiritual terrorism and fear
that gripped the country: the central characters, Manuel and Rosa, move
credulously from allegiance to allegiance until they finally learn that
the land belongs not to god or the devil, but to the people themselves.
The film's success here doubtless reflects the 'exoticism' of its style,
somewhere between folk ballad and contemporary myth, since the
references to Brazilian history and culture are pervasive and fairly
opaque to the uninitiated. But Rocha's project is fundamentally
political, and completely unambiguous: he faces up to the contradictions
of his country in an effort to understand, to crush mystiques, and to
improve.
Tony Rayns
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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