The theme of this emblematic film of Brazilian “Cinema Novo” is the misery and oppression of the peasant people by the landlords. Between theatre and cinema, realism and symbolism, sacredness and violence, Glauber Rosa depicts forms of rebellion – through the resort to mysticism on the one hand and obscene violence on the other, with self-appointed saviours and fanatics in a cycle of death and destruction. But his revolutionary vision is summed up in the phrase “The earth is neither God’s nor the Devil’s, but man’s”s.
