Glauber Rocha was one of those special directors who understood that what the audience heard during a film was just as important as what they saw. For Rocha, sound wasn't simply a background element. Instead, he used it to highlight the pathos and underpinnings of his work. He almost gleefully switched between diegetic and non-diegetic sound, many times during the same shot. Watch how he uses it in his famous film Terra em Transe. By the last third of the film, I had completely lost the plot and had simply begun to let myself be absorbed by Rocha's expert blending of sight and sound. The story involves a Latin American journalist named Paulo Martins who finds himself in the middle of a brewing Civil War in the fictional country of Eldorado. On the one side is the conservative president and on the other a "populist" governor. Martins has to deal with two very distinct problems concerning both sides as they barrel towards armed conflict. First, he knows for a fact that both politicians are horribly corrupt. Second, he is largely responsible for both men gaining power in the first place. Rocha makes no attempt to orient the audience as he cuts between past and present with reckless abandon. Rocha is obviously trying to make a profound political statement with Terra em Transe. But he makes the mistake of obfuscating it behind cinematic pyrotechnics. The people who don't have a vast, in-depth knowledge of Brazilian politics will be left confused and bored. But still, Terra em Transe is an interesting watch purely for its radical, exuberant technique.
6/10
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