Set in 1910 in the arid, scorching Brazilian badlands, where sugarcane farmers eke a living out of barren soil and primitive equipment, Walter Salles' Behind The Sun moves with a primal simplicity and force that jibes elegantly with its characters' fixed destinies. Locked in a family feud dating back several generations, the sons are born into an endless cycle of murder and retribution over futile notions of "honor" and property that has less and less to yield. Trading in the neo-neo-realism of his Oscar-nominated road movie Central Station for the stark conflicts of a Western, Salles excels at streamlining the story to its most basic elements, and he keeps a sharp eye out for the beauty of the landscape, which he treats with the majesty of Monument Valley. As with the earlier film, his stripped-down approach at times betrays a weakness for cloying sentimentality and obvious symbolism. But in its strongest moments, Behind The Sun has a mythic power that's authentic and evocative of the period, harking back to a time and place where tradition was beginning to seem as crude and antiquated as the farming tools. The story opens with the Breves family mourning the loss of their eldest son, who was shot down in broad daylight by a member of the rival clan. In accordance with mourning rituals, the deceased man's shirt is hung out on the clothesline until the bloodstain turns yellow, after which the next oldest son exacts equal revenge on the killer. Much as the duty haunts him, 20-year-old Rodrigo Santoro follows father José Dumont's command and goes through with the shooting, knowing that it will make him a marked man in turn. During a short truce between the families, Santoro and younger brother Ravi Ramos Lacerda are inspired by a pair of traveling circus performers (Luís Carlos Vasconcelos and Flavia Marco Antonio) who introduce them to the dreamier possibilities of love and literature, but Behind The Sun works best when its characters are carrying out old rituals rather than breaking them. The cycle of violence that eradicates one generation after another has a dreadful inevitability that's supported by tradition; for example, Santoro can safely stroll into the funeral parlor of the man he just shot, because it's not yet time for him to die. When he finds love, he enters the more familiar turf of gauzy romance, just as his younger brother's passion for inventing fanciful stories seems like an all-too-obvious escape route. And how many times did Salles need to cut away to the father whipping two oxen into grinding the sugarcane until the point was made? Despite its occasional lapses into cliché, Behind The Sun is redeemed by the clarity and command of a gifted visual storyteller.