Black God, White Devil (1964) (re)

Glauber Rocha's sophomore feature is a scorched-earth allegory about the blind followers of dead-end ideologies. Somewhere in the Brazilian hinterlands of the 1940s, ranch hand Manoel (Geraldo Del Rey) becomes an outlaw after killing his swindling boss. He pledges allegiance to Sebastia?o (Lidio Silva), a self-styled holy man who preaches revolt against rich landowners even as he perpetrates unspeakable acts of violent zealotry against the innocent. While the landowners hire a mercenary (Mauri?cio do Valle) to take out Sebastia?o, Manoel and his wife Rosa (Yona? Magalha?es) join cangaceiros Corisco (Othon Bastos) and Dada? (Sonia Dos Humildes), only to find themselves once more in league with evil, deluded forces. Steeped in history, myth, religion, and politics, and suffused with the feverish intensity of the blistering desert, Black God, White Devil is one of the Cinema Novo movement's most uncompromising statements on current social issues as well as the universal problem of mindless fanaticism.