A significant work of the Cinema Novo movement, one that dared to challenge the legitimacy of politics and religion as a poor farmer tries to seek salvation after killing his exploitative employer.

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Glauber Rocha launched himself—and inspired a burgeoning film movement—with Black God, White Devil.  One of the most significant works of the early Cinema Novo period, Rocha’s film is about revolt by the disenfranchised against the establishment. 

Power is exploited by the rich against the poor, and in Black God, White Devil, we feel the angst of the people through their alliances with religion and political rebels. 

A farmer tries to seek salvation after killing his conniving boss, escaping into the desolate landscape where he finds a black priest with a cult following.  Soon after, he becomes mired in the ideological violence that has plagued the country from time to time. 

Brazil in 1964, the year of the film’s release, was a tumultuous period.  A military coup d’état had transformed it into a dictatorship that would last till 1985. 

“The poor will be rich and will sit on the right side of God. The rich will be poor in the depths of hell.”

Rocha, the poster boy for Brazilian cinema of rebellion, explores the trauma of fighting for one’s dignity.  It is not easy being on the side of the anti-establishment, and even religion is not spared from being wielded for political gain. 

Much of Black God, White Devil uses music to poeticise the human condition, from mournful folk songs about working the land to lively, festive guitar pieces. 

It is a vibrant if also sobering work; there’s an aesthetics of poverty, though it doesn’t quite subscribe to, say, neorealism’s sentimental aims, and hence feels less emotionally compelling. 

Rocha would take his ideological engagement with cinema ever further with Entranced Earth (1967) and the even more radical The Lion Has Seven Heads (1970). 

Grade: B+

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