Day 15: O Sertao

Day 15: O Sertao

We watched a movie on Wednesday about the Sertao. It was a long movie so we split it into two days, but I am going to discuss it all in this post.

First of all, what is the Sertao? It is basically the desert lands of Brazil. It hardly ever rains there. The people there are very poor. Most of them live off raising cattle or cane sugar money. During the late 1880s and the early 1900s, there was an even greater draught in the Sertao. The people began to migrate from the Northeast to Sao Paulo looking for jobs. These people are called the Retirantes. They are seen as un-wantable uneducated people who take people’s jobs. Yet, their culture is very strong in the bigger cities, simply because so many of them moved there so quickly.  There is a lot of retirante art in the Brazil; it is a very important part of their culture.

Well the movie we watched was called Behind the Sun. it is a movie about two families feuding over land. They have been killing each other for generations. One family kills someone, and the other family retaliates once the blood on that person’s shirt has turned yellow. The movie is really fantastic, and I am not going to spoil it for anyone who is interested but you defiantly see a lot of popular elements in many of the Brazilian arts. For example, good versus evil, poor versus rich, educated versus uneducated, and most importantly the Sertao versus the City (beach). I really enjoyed the movie, and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a movie that makes you want to cease the day.

The rest of the afternoon was really rainy, so we went home and watched the Portugal versus Spain game. My roommate is from Portugal, and they lost. Oh well.