A group of soldiers is sent to Northeastern Brazil to stop the drought-stricken sertao population from looting a food warehouse. As a religious leader fuels the people's desperation, a truck driver watches, torn between loyalty to the soldiers and outrage at the government's neglect.
Mozambican-born director Ruy Guerra settled in Brazil, where he first worked in theater before turning to cinema. 'The Guns,' his second feature, tackles one of the central themes of early Cinema Novo: the drought, hunger, and inequalities of Northeastern Brazil. Mixing fiction and documentary elements, Guerra employs long takes and an overexposed light that mirrors the blazing sun of the sertao. This approach was part of the cinematic language shared by Nelson Pereira dos Santos' 'Barren Lives' (1963) and Glauber Rocha's 'Black God, White Devil' (1964). Like its counterparts, 'The Guns' sends with a revolutionary appeal: the ex-military Gaucho furiously confronts a man whose daughter just died of starvation, denouncing his passivity as food is taken away. Such moments, in which politically conscious characters resemble the filmmakers themselves, embody the movement’s drive to rouse an alienated population - though critics often point to the intellectualism of this strategy.