---
title: "The Given Word"
year: 1962
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-given-word"
fi1m_id: "the-given-word"
imdb_id: "tt0056322"
tmdb_id: 59990
wikidata_id: "Q1482269"
fi1m_score: 76
critics_reviews: 2
published: "2026-09-26T14:32:09.810956+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-26T14:32:20.728190+00:00"
region: "TH"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# The Given Word (1962)

Directed by Anselmo Duarte · 1h 38m · Drama

## Identity

The Given Word

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-given-word
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** the-given-word
- **IMDb ID:** tt0056322
- **TMDB ID:** 59990
- **Wikidata ID:** Q1482269
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056322/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/59990, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1482269

**Fi1m score: 76** · Critics: 2 of 6 reviews so far

*In a sentence:* A man carries a cross to a church and the church says no; everybody else in Salvador turns up to explain what he means

> Anselmo Duarte’s film keeps one stubborn farmer on the steps of a church for 98 minutes and watches a city gather round him. It is plainly staged and blunt about its villains, and Leonardo Villar’s patience holds it together. Worth your evening.

## Synopsis

Salvador, Bahia, at dawn. Zé do Burro (Leonardo Villar), a small farmer from the interior, arrives at the top of the steps of the church of Saint Barbara with a full-sized wooden cross on his shoulder and his wife Rosa (Glória Menezes) trailing behind him. He has carried it seven leagues to keep a promise: if his donkey recovered from a snake bite, he would bring the cross to the saint and give his land to the poor. The donkey recovered. He has given away the land. Padre Olavo (Dionísio Azevedo) meets him at the door and refuses to open it, because the promise was made in a Candomblé terreiro, and a promise to Iansã is not a promise to Saint Barbara. Zé sits down on the steps to wait. The square begins to fill.

## Review

Zé do Burro (Leonardo Villar) has walked seven leagues from his patch of land in the Bahian interior to the city of Salvador, with a wooden cross the size of a door on his shoulder. He made a promise: if his donkey recovered, he would carry the cross to the church of Saint Barbara and give his land to the poor. The donkey recovered. He has kept both halves of the bargain, and when he reaches the church steps, Padre Olavo (Dionísio Azevedo) will not let him in, because the promise was made in a Candomblé terreiro and the saint he prayed to was really Iansã. Anselmo Duarte’s film, written with Dias Gomes from Gomes’s own play, then keeps Zé on those steps for the rest of its 98 minutes. It is a good film, clumsy in places, and worth seeing.

What Duarte is after is a parable in a single square. Word gets round that a peasant is camped at the church door with a cross, and the city comes to have a look. Bonitão (Geraldo del Rey), a pimp with a good jacket, sees Rosa (Glória Menezes) and sees an opportunity. A reporter (Othon Bastos) sees a headline. Mestre Coca (Antônio Pitanga) brings his capoeira circle. Marly (Norma Bengell), who works for Bonitão, watches from a window. A police inspector (Enoch Torres) arrives to find out who is causing the trouble. Each of them wants Zé to stand for something, and Zé wants to get his cross through a door.

Villar is the reason it works. He plays Zé as a man who does not know he is being stubborn, because to him there is nothing to decide: he said he would do a thing, so he is doing it. He barely raises his voice. He explains the promise to the priest, to the reporter, to the crowd, in the same flat words each time, and the words never change while everyone around him changes what they think they mean. When he finally sits down on the step and lays the cross across his knees, we were moved more than we expected to be by a man sitting down. Azevedo, opposite him, does not play a villain. Padre Olavo is frightened, of the bishop, of the drums he can hear from the terreiro, of a faith he cannot control, and Azevedo lets the fear show through the rules.

H.E. Fowle shoots it in hard black and white, mostly in full sun, so the square is white stone and black shadow and the church door sits pale and shut at the top of the frame in shot after shot. The crowd scenes are held in deep focus, with the cross visible somewhere in nearly every one, and Carlos Coimbra cuts them fast and cuts the steps slow, so that the city hurries and Zé does not. Gabriel Migliori’s score is at its best when it is not a score at all: the atabaque drums start off screen and get closer, and the capoeira sequence, with Pitanga’s men circling on the flagstones to the berimbau, is the most alive stretch in the film.

The weaknesses are the play’s. People walk into the square on cue and announce their position, and the reporter and the political fixers who follow him are written as cartoons, greedy in a way that needs no explaining because the film has already decided it. Bastos is enjoyable, but the newspaper subplot is where we grew impatient, roughly the middle third, waiting for the film to get back to the steps. Bonitão’s designs on Rosa are handled with the delicacy of a nudge in the ribs. The Radio Times has it right that this is closer to melodrama than to the rougher Brazilian cinema that was about to arrive.

That is worth saying, because two years later Glauber Rocha’s *Black God, White Devil* (1964) would take the same country, the same faith and the same poverty and make something far stranger with them. Duarte is more conventional and more legible, and that is a large part of why his film travelled and Rocha’s took longer. Both approaches have a case. This one has a clear story, a clear man at the centre of it and a clear door he cannot pass through.

The second half takes a turn we will not describe, though anyone who has watched the sky over the church darken will have a fair idea. See it for Villar, for the drums, and for the way the square fills. Do not expect it to be fair to journalists.

*Fi1m score 76, published 26 September 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is The Given Word worth watching?**

*The Given Word* is worth watching for anyone who can sit with one man on a church step for 98 minutes, and we scored it 76. Leonardo Villar's patient, unraised performance holds it, and the drums and the capoeira circle give it life. The newspaper subplot in the middle third is where we grew impatient.

**How long is The Given Word, and what is it rated?**

*The Given Word* runs 1h 38m. It is a drama film.

**Where can I watch The Given Word in Thailand?**

*The Given Word* is not on any streaming or rental service in Thailand at the moment. It is available in 1 other country; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How does The Given Word compare to Ordet?**

*The Given Word* and [*Ordet*](https://film.one/film/ordet) both take one man's literal belief seriously and watch everyone around him fail to cope with it, but Duarte's film is louder and plainer, with a crowded square and villains drawn in thick lines. Dreyer's is slower, more formal and more moving, and the better film. Come to Duarte for a clear story and a city filling; come to Dreyer if you can settle into long conversations.

**What should I watch after The Given Word?**

After *The Given Word*, try [*Black God, White Devil*](https://film.one/film/black-god-white-devil) (1964, Fi1m 82): Same faith, same hunger, same Bahia, made by someone who wanted to break the form. Then [*Ordet*](https://film.one/film/ordet) (1955, Fi1m 86): Dreyer takes one man’s literal belief entirely seriously and lets the doubters squirm; and [*Ace in the Hole*](https://film.one/film/ace-in-the-hole) (1951, Fi1m 87): A reporter turns one trapped man into a carnival; Wilder is even less forgiving.

### Reviews we read (2)

- **Radio Times**, David Parkinson (4/5): The review finds the film moving and provocative, while arguing it is more indebted to comic melodrama than Cinema Novo. It praises the story’s power to expose social corruption, political indolence and media manipulation. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-vqp4ae/the-given-word/)
- **The New York Times** (64/100, inferred): The available page does not reveal the critic’s verdict or what the review singles out. The article text could not be accessed, so its assessment cannot be summarized reliably. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/25/archives/screen-religious-conflictleonardo-vilar-stars-in-the-given-word.html)

## Details

- **Director:** Anselmo Duarte
- **Director:** Anselmo Duarte
- **Screenplay:** Anselmo Duarte, Dias Gomes
- **Cinematography:** H.E. Fowle
- **Editor:** Carlos Coimbra
- **Music:** Gabriel Migliori
- **Producer:** Oswaldo Massaini
- **Cast:** Leonardo Villar as Zé do Burro; Glória Menezes as Rosa; Dionísio Azevedo as Padre Olavo; Geraldo del Rey as Bonitão; Roberto Ferreira as Dedé; Othon Bastos as Reporter; Antônio Pitanga as Mestre Coca; Gilberto Marques as Galego
- **Runtime:** 1h 38m
- **First release (Portugal):** 17 April 1962
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Also in:** [Palme d'Or winners](https://film.one/collections/palme-dor.md) (Winner, 1962)

## Where to watch in Thailand

Not streaming, renting or buying in Thailand at the last check.

Also available in: BR. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 1963: Best International Feature Film (nominated)
- International Submission to the Academy Awards 1963: International Submission to the Academy Awards (nominated)
- Cannes Film Festival 1962: Palme d'Or (won)

## If you liked this

- *Black God, White Devil* (1964), Fi1m 82: Same faith, same hunger, same Bahia, made by someone who wanted to break the form — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/black-god-white-devil.md)
- *Ordet* (1955), Fi1m 86: Dreyer takes one man’s literal belief entirely seriously and lets the doubters squirm — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ordet.md)
- *Ace in the Hole* (1951), Fi1m 87: A reporter turns one trapped man into a carnival; Wilder is even less forgiving — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ace-in-the-hole.md)
- *Nazarín* (1959): Buñuel’s priest tries to live the gospel and the world punishes him for it
- *Bacurau* (2019): A small Brazilian town refuses to move for anyone; it also has a lot more guns

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-given-word