Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol

An abysmally acted, shot and edited film, which succeeded in relating a slight exoticism but no clear notion of its politico-theological aims. Mostly, nothing happens. Then some people are killed. Then nothing happens for ages again, and so on.

Kinda boring, really couldn't get into it much. The stark contrast in the photography works well to evoke a certain desolate mood, and Rocha does some interesting things with the soundtrack (including the narration in song). But the characters are too nutty and high-concept, and the film's religious/political messages are way too blunt. Impressive for 1964 Brazil perhaps, but I sure didn't get much out of it.

For a film with a good use of music, interesting characters, adept camerawork and vibrant action scenes this was remarkably dull, probably due to the fact that those things were merely the punctuation marks on the slow religious allegory.

This is probably what would happen if you made Andrej Tarkovsky write a script that would then be handed to the directorial care of Peter Jackson.

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