“Such theories of liberation are made materially manifest first through the figure of the favela […] The favela has also long been surrounded by negative myths: the 2002 movie Cidade de Deus (City of God) presented a fictionalized account of violence equal to that found in any war zone.”[…] In each case, the European visitor feard the favela, but was at the same time drawn to it, hoping […] that their work would be liberated through contact with it. Marcel Camus well known Black Orpheus of 1959 reiterates the exoticization of the favela in film.” 

“One of the crucial figures in this constellation was the young film director and theorist Glauber Rocha, widely regarded as a genius. His Movies were difficult but arresting; shot in black and white on tiny budgets, they dealt with gigantic themes. Terra em Transe (Land in Trance) of 1967 is a good example, an uncompromising allegory of contemporary politics in Brazil. Abruptly shot and edited, and acted with peculiar intensity, it actively dispenses with the visual or narrative pleasures of mainstream cinema […] In 1965 Rocha published the article, ‘A Estética da Fome’ (‘The Aesthetics of Hunger’), a short but powerful Challenge to the modernizing culture of the authorities.”  

 

Richard J. Williams , Brazil, Reaktion Books Ltd, London, 2009; pp.166-167; p.13