Film Forum

(1969, Glauber Rocha) In the Sertão of Northeast Brazil, Das Mortes, the jagunço (mercenary) first seen in Rocha’s Black God, White Devil, returns 30 years later to take on “the last cangaceiro (outlaw),” before realizing his fight is elsewhere. “A peculiar amalgamation of history and legend, epic and lyric” (Michael Chanan), with Brazil’s two most famous uprisings–– Palmares and Canudos ––as background. In Portuguese, with English subtitles. 16mm print courtesy BFI. Approx. 96 min.

Reviews

“Exemplifies the aesthetic and political goals of Cinema Novo, as well as the established traditions of Brazilian Modernist art. It is very specifically Brazilian in its mythic and folkloric background, it its codes, its music, poetry and dance, as well as in its political thrust; To apply North American or European values… is to misread the film and to deprive oneself of an enormous share of its richness.”
– Terence Carlson, Brazilian Cinema

“An astonishing, inspired, free, rich, lyrical film, a film which restores to cinema its grandeur and magic, a romancero mingling the tragic and the sublime.”
– Yvonne Baby, Le Monde

“A startling fresco of folkways and folk-legends of the arid Brazilian plains… a weird and savage melodrama, it’s elevated by the fierce poetic lyricism of the narration and becomes a form of screen ballad.”
– Thomas Quinn Curtis, International Herald-Tribune