Glauber Rocha

Deus e o Diablo na Terra do Sol/ White God Black Devil (1963) is set in the 1930s. Its real protagonist is the landscape, the desolate and dry sertao from which poverty and violence originate. In this age there are still echoes of some historical tragedies. The "Canudos" was a millenarian movement founded in 1893 by Antonio Conselheiro. In 1897 the army massacred the entire community in Monte Santo: 15,000 people. The story became famous after Euclides da Cunha's "Os Sertoes" (1903) reported it; and Mario Vargas Llosa's "The War of the End of the World" is about that massacre. The second half of the film takes place three days after the social bandit Lampiao was betrayed by some of his men and killed by the army (1938). Lampiao's gang was beheaded and the soldiers took a gruesome picture of the heads. Finally (and not a tragedy), Father Cicero was a priest who in 1872 founded a religious community in Juazeiro. The film is a strange blend of history and surrealism, of Italian neorealism and Greek tragedy, of mythology and western movie. The other protagonist, besides the landscape, at least in the first half, is Rosa, the woman who hardly ever talks but is shocked and puzzled by what happens around her. She is "us", a viewer, a spectator, who cannot comprehend the fanatics and the superstition. She is also a sort of Greek heroine in that she desperately clings to her man who is hopelessly falling into madness. Later she becomes a madwoman herself. Manoel has just lost a horse, a symbol of exteme poverty. He rides his other horse home in the dry sertao. Along the way he meets a religious procession led by a saint. He circles around the group and realizes this is the famous Sebastian who claims to have predicted the drought. Manoel tells his wife Rosa about the miracle man, but she is indifferent, too busy with the heavy chores of the farm. Manoel tells the landowner that he lost eight cows to snakebites, but the landowner has no mercy. Manoel is ruined. Manoel, desperate, kills the landowner and then rides home, chased by two men. He kills both of them, but not before one of them manages to kill his old and sick mother. Manoel and Rosa flee the farm and join the crowd that follows Sebastian, who is taking them to a promised land of sorts, a holy island that will emerge out of the sertao. Rosa is skeptic and annoyed that Manoel believes in the saint but has not choice. The crowd keeps growing as they march through villages and forcibly convert villagers. Rosa stares speechless at the hysterical people praying with the saint. Rosa, knowing that sooner or later the soldiers will come, tries in vain to talk sense to Manoel. In fact, the church and the landowners are hiring Antonio to get rid of Sebastian's movement. Antonio is torn: he believes that Sebastian is truly a saint, but, at the same time, he is tempted by the money and feels that his destiny is to kill Sebastian's followers. Meanwhile, Manoel has become Sebastian's most faithful and fervent disciple, ready to do anything for him. Rosa is getting more desperate, unable to make sense of what is going on around her. Manoel carries a heavy stone on his head, crawling towards a chapel with the saint. Rosa is seized and thrown in the chapel. Sebastian wakes up Manoel, who has collapsed in the chapel next to the big stone. Sebastian tells Manoel that his wife is the devil and that he has to sacrifice a baby. Manoel beats his wife and then holds the baby in his arms while Sebastian kills him with a knife. Rosa grabs the knife and kills Sebastian. Chaos erupts outside as Antonio's men attack. They kill everybody except Rosa and Manoel so that they can go and tell everybody what happened. Manoel and Rosa wander through the sertao with a blind man, Julio, who sings a commentary to their story, and eventually run into a ferocious sadistic bandit, Corisco, who survived the massacre of Lampiao's men and has vowed to take revenge on the government. They witness as he and his two cohorts slaughter a group of poor villagers in order to save them from starvation. Corisco is completely mad and delivers a delirious monologue. Nonetheless Manoel is raptured again, and Rosa can't do much. Manoel wants to avenge Sebastian as much as Corisco wants to avenge Lampiao. Rosa stares at Corisco's wife Dada and caresses her face. Now Rosa is beginning to behave like a madwoman herself. Corisco renames Manoel as Satan. This time Rosa does not react. And she does not speak anymore. They attack a farm. Corisco rapes the woman and tortures the man, then orders Manoel to castrate the man, then finishes him outside. Rosa steals the woman's bridal veil and walks around ecstatic indifferent to Corisco's atrocities. In fact, when Manoel repents and offers to rebel, Rosa flogs him. Corisco explains that twenty years earlier the man's father had humiliated him. Corisco admits that he is more dead than alive. Meanwhile Antonio, while full of remorse, interrogates Julio the blind to find out where Manoel is. Antonio wants to know who killed the saint. Antonio is out to kill both Corisco and Manoel. Julio delivers the message to them. Corisco and Manoel argue over who was greater, the social bandit Lampiao or the spiritual master Sebastian. Corisco sends Dada home and sends Manoel in recognition. Rosa, left alone with him, kisses him passionately. Dada returns with the news that their daughter has been killed by the soldiers who are hunting them. The two couples march through the desert until they encouter Antonio. In the shootout Antonio kills Corisco and then beheads him. Manoel and Rosa run away. Rosa falls and Manoel leaves her behind. Manoel keeps running until he reaches the ocean.

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