Cinema
The Turning Wind
Barravento
Glauber Rocha · 1962
Synopsis
In a fishing village on the coast of Bahia, whose people are descended from African slaves, the men rent their net from a trader who takes most of the catch, and wait for the gods of candomblé to end their poverty. Firmino, who fled poverty in Salvador, returns to the village with new ideas and rejects this fatalism. Torn between Cota and Naína, who loves Aruã, the fisherman whose chastity places him under the protection of Iemanjá, he cuts the net to push the fishermen to revolt against the owner.
Context
Shot in Salvador from 1959 to 1960 and released in 1962, this first feature film by its director was written with José Telles de Magalhães and Luiz Paulino dos Santos, edited by Nelson Pereira dos Santos and produced by Iglu Filmes. The sea, music, dance and ceremonies hold a central place in it. The critic Alex Viany compared it to Tabou, by Murnau and Flaherty, and to Les Révoltés d'Alvarado, by Zinnemann; trigon-film sees in it the herald of the film the filmmaker shot two years later on the sertão.
Who it is for
A black and white film of eighty minutes; the ritual sequences in it are long and unexplained.
Prizes and reception
The filmmaker's first feature, hailed as a free and unbridled work and for the beauty of its images.