The Turning Wind

Glauber Rocha's first feature and one of the founding works of Cinema Novo. It is set in a village on the coast of Bahia where the fishermen's ancestors were brought from Africa as slaves. The village still holds to candomblé, and the nets, the sea and the catch are all explained through the spirits. Firmino, who left for Salvador, comes back and sets about breaking that order. The tension is that Firmino is both right and unbearable. He correctly identifies that the villagers are being exploited, but he also attacks the only thing they have left, their belief, and convinces nobody. Rocha does not glorify the figure of the revolutionary here; he tests him. Shooting took place in Salvador between 1959 and September 1960. Samba, capoeira and scenes from an actual candomblé ceremony appear, not as decor but as part of the film's argument. Who it is for: viewers curious about the political strain in Brazilian cinema and the third cinema movements of the sixties. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a polished production or a straight narrative, since the film is raw and deliberately unruly.