Messianismo, fome e religiosidade popular no filme Os Fuzis, de Ruy Guerra

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the representation of religious messianism in the film Os Fuzis, directed by Ruy Guerra and released in 1964. The film, associated with Brazilian Cinema Novo, presents a narrative set in the northeastern backlands, marked by drought, hunger, the presence of soldiers, and popular religiosity. The main focus of the analysis is, therefore, to understand how the “holy ox”, the preacher, and the sertanejo population express a form of religious hope in the face of a social reality marked by abandonment, poverty, and the lack of real alternatives to escape these social hardships. Thus, the film is treated in this study as a historical source and cultural production, based on the contributions of Marc Ferro and the debates on cinema and history. The discussion on messianism is mainly supported by Lísias Nogueira Negrão and Jacqueline Hermann, authors who help to organize the dense debate on Brazilian messianic movements and to think about the relations between popular religiosity, social crisis, poverty, abandonment, and the search for salvation. The article argues that, in Os Fuzis, messianism does not appear only as fanaticism or alienation, but as a symbolic response of a population subjected to hunger, violence, and the absence of the State.