Seventh session of the film programme Manoel de Oliveira Espectador, which explores Oliveira's experience as a filmgoer, revisiting films and filmmakers which were essential in his journey as a cinephile.

DEUS E O DIABO NA TERRA DO SOL | BLACK GOD, WHITE DEVIL

Glauber Rocha | BRA | 1964 | 120’

One of the most representative films of Brazil's Cinema Novo, Black God, White Devil is Glauber Rocha's central film, which sums up his aesthetic and political agenda. Following his sophomore effort Barravento (1962), a critical outlook on Brazil's sociopolitical problems, Black God, White Devil is set in the barren sertão, where couple Manoel and Rosa tries to buy a piece of land to make ends meet. After commiting a crime, Manoel joins a religious cult actively fighting against big landowners. Those landowners then hire Antônio das Mortes to eliminate whoever stands and disturbs the land of the powerful. Having been a big admirer of the film and its filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira stood firmly in favor of this Brazilian masterpiece, exulting it as an "extraordinary film" which clearly demonstrates Glauber Rocha's nature as "impulsive, non-conformist and geniously intuitive, mixing love and justice in a cry of despair" (Manoel de Oliveira, Ditos e Escritos, Fundação de Serralves, p. 259).