Using failures as stepping stones: "Nome Próprio" [2007 Brazil]

Murilo Salles co-opted author Clara Averbuck's alter ego Camila from her groundbreaking novel (Máquina de Pinball) for his drama "Nome Próprio" [Eng. Title: Camila Jam].










Set in São Paulo, the film begins with Camila (Leandra Leal) being kicked out of the apartment by boyfriend Felipe (Juliano Cazarré) following a flaming row between them - apparently she'd 'cheated' on him and he wants her out of his life. Camila's shame, outrage, and vulnerability is underscored by the added detail of her also being completely naked when the eviction happens.

Camila wants to be a writer, and whilst waiting for her inspiration, keeps herself engaged socially by maintaining a blog where she'd also built up a following. After a friend in whose apartment she found shelter vacates and leaves unexpectedly, one of her blog fans comes to her rescue and offers her a place a stay.

But Camila also doesn't want to be just any writer - she craves for poetry and intensity in everything she does, and she seeks them wherever she can, regardless of the people she might hurt, or despite unfailingly getting hurt herself. Her resourcefulness and chutzpah allows her to dust herself off after every little calamity and and keep chasing that elusive something she's looking for. As she herself admits, "Sometimes they break my legs, they kick me in the face, and they stomp on my fingers. I survive. I'm scarred too, but I make the most of each and every one of my scars."

Leandra Leal makes the film special by her unforgettable no-holds-barred portrayal of Camila as an intense and worryingly unsatisfied woman. And of course, the credit for that can justifiably be shared with the director too for helping Ms. Leal bring this character out of her. Watching the film after nearly a decade and with a bit more 'mature' eyes certainly helped me discover nuances I had missed earlier. I'm aware of some films from elsewhere that touches on similar topics, but the intensity seen in this film is certainly unique. Needless to say, this little gem is Highly Recommended Viewing..!

DVD Purchase Link [NTSC]

 

The Nudity: Leandra Leal, Rosanne Mulholland, Ricardo Garcia, and Gustavo Machado
Leandra Leal appears nude in a number of scenes, most of which are also long and intense. Rosanne Mulholland plays Camila's best friend Paula and appears nude in a post-coital scene with Leandra Leal. Ricardo Garcia and Gustavo Machado appear briefly nude during their scenes with Camila. The film also features one of the more 'intriguing' sex scenes not often seen in mainstream cinema. A drunk Camila taunts, teases, rejects, and challenges an equally drunk Rodrigo (Ricardo Garcia) in a scene that oscillates between rape and seduction for over 8½ minutes - a scene that I'd also love to discuss with readers in the comments section.



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A brief film review: “A Costa dos Murmúrios” [2004 Portugal]

Margarida Cardoso's maiden feature "A Costa dos Murmúrios" [Eng. Title: The Murmuring Coast] uses the backdrop of Portugal's early struggles at holding on to its empire in Africa, to study a couple's relationship that begins full of promise but falters as they get to know each other better.










Set in the early sixties, we see a newly wed Evita (Beatriz Batarda) arrive at 'picturesque' Mozambique to join her husaband Luis (Filipe Duarte), a mathematician-turned colonel serving in the Portuguese Army. As she adjusts to the tropical climate, she notices that Luis had lost all the passion he once had for mathematics.

She's nevertheless made to feel at home by Luis's captain Jaime (Adriano Luz) and his wife Helena (Monica Calle). Evita also notices that Luis looks up to Jaime and often makes an extra effort to please his superior. This becomes disturbingly evident during a hunting safari where Luis tries to outdo Jaime in 'exercising his fingers' against a hapless wildlife using a Kalashnikov rifle.

But a more sinister side to their camaraderie, and by extension Portugal's colonial policies, are revealed when Evita spends more time with Helena after their respective husbands go away on an army operation. The brutality against natives, it seems, is just another symptom of attitudes that they've willingly adopted from a bygone era where chauvinism and patriarchy is the norm, and duelling and honour killings, par for the course. A modern and liberated Evita struggles to come to terms with their world...

Cardoso uses a subject close to her heart - Portuguese colonialism in Africa, and through a documentary-eye, places her protagonist as a helpless bystander witnessing events from a distance - with the gathering clouds of resistance outside as much a reflection of her tumult within. It is an ambitious film, but it also succeeds to a large extent with its soul-searching. Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link [PAL]

 

The Nudity: Beatriz Batarda and Monica Calle
The film features some nudity, with Beatriz Batarda in a scene vaguely reminiscent of Kristin Scott Thomas from "The English Patient". Monica Calle is briefly nude while emerging from the bath, and is later seen disrobed and left lying on the floor.



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A film review: "A Bruta Flor do Querer" [2013 Brazil]

Dida Andrade and Andradina Azevedo script, direct, and star in their independent debut feature, "A Bruta Flor do Querer" [Eng. Title: The Savage Flower of Desire, aka Deep Blue Dream] about life and prospects for youth in a competitive and downbeat Sao Paulo.









The free flowing non-narrative gives a brief backstory to Diego (Dida Andrade), a promising film school graduate whose self-confidence is shattered the moment he enters the job market, and who's now reduced to shooting wedding videos for a living. He occasionally meets up with former students and drowns his sorrows in drugs and alcohol with his slightly better-off friend (Andradina Azevedo), who's promised to recommend him to an uncle producing a school play.

Diego tries to win over local belle Diana (Diana Motta) who works at a used books store, and a good chunk of screen time is dedicated to his desperate attempts to draw the courage and ask her out. The potential romance however unexpectedly fizzles out before it could take off, and leaves an already low Diego shattered.

After wallowing in his misery under a state of drug-fuelled stupor, Diego, in a moment of frenzy, walks out on his day job. Not making headway with the kids playing in the drama project, he and his friend decide to escape the city, its trappings, the failures and the loneliness, and head to the coast in search of chicks and new friends...

Separated into chapters in a Godardesque fashion, the film draws obvious pointers from the French New Wave even if a bit superficially. I was disappointed that the promising skyline of Sao Paulo doesn't get to play a greater role in the film, but to their credit, the directors do manage to challenge the audience into listening to their story, replete with warts and pimples, and without the feel-good factor of the boy getting his girl. For those who can look past the excessive use of drugs in the film (not nearly in an engaging, Trainspotting kinda way), it would be Recommended Viewing..!

DVD Purchase Link [NTSC]

 

The Nudity: Clara Andrezzo, Dida Andrade, Nara Lobo, Andradina Azevedo, Danielle Rosa, and Sue Nhamandu
Sex scenes inside a car feature twice in the film, and one of them is briefly explicit when the girl that Diego had picked up strokes his penis. The film also features a skinny-dipping scene and one where Diego hallucinates a girl (Nara Lobo) taunting him in German.



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A film review: "Bufo & SPallanzani" [2001, Brazil]

Wishing you all a happy 2017!

 











Flávio Tambellini's thriller "Bufo & Spallanzani" is a dramatisation of popular Brazilian novelist Rubem Fonseca's novel by the same. The title alludes to tortuous experiments conducted by an Italian scientist - Spallanzani, to study a frog's regenerative capacity sometime during the nineteenth century.

The film begins with the discovery of socialite Delfina's (Maitê Proença) body in her car at a wooded area. With a bullet wound through her heart and a pistol by her side, initial investigations point towards a suicide, but forensic analysis, conducted on the insistence of shrewd investigator Guedes (Tony Ramos) reveals a murder.

The plot thickens when Flávio (José Mayer), a bestselling author, visits Guedes with his girlfriend Minolta (Isabel Guéron). He admits to being in an intimate relationship with Delfina, and apart from accusing Delfina's husband Delamare of murdering his wife, also claims that Delamare is out to get kill him too after discovering the affair.

Running parallel to this story is Flávio's previous life from a decade ago when he, then called Ivan Canabrava, used to work for Delamare's insurance company as a claims investigator. He lands himself in hot water after he unearths a false claim that Delamare himself seems to have been party to, and had to 'disappear' with new girlfriend Minolta - he takes on a new identity and becomes a writer.

The incorruptible and dogged sleuth in Guedes refuses to buy Flavio's version of events, but he however agrees that Flavio's life is indeed in danger and arrives on time to rescue him. In the meantime, Guedes is under immense pressure from his boss to close the case due to people higher up bearing down upon him to hush things up...

I haven't read the novel myself, but judging by the intricate plot, I couldn't help wondering that the sense of suspense was lost in translation on several occasions, and some facets that might have inquired the mind during a read nevertheless get mixed up with mundane events in the film. Regardless of these tiny flaws, it is a valiant attempt at a genre that Brazilian cinema, unlike neighbouring Argentina, hasn't been that much accustomed to. The soundtrack is appealing, and the technicians have done a good job in putting it together. For anyone who enjoys intelligent mainstream films, it is of course, Recommended Viewing..!

DVD Purchase Link [NTSC]

 

The Nudity: Maitê Proença and Isabel Guéron
There is brief nudity from Maitê Proença during a sex scene, but those of Isabel Guéron's character Minolta, akin to a Brazilian version of Crystal Fairy, are certainly among the more memorable scenes in the film. She appears nude in at least three well-lit scenes.



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A film review: "Ventos de Agosto" [2014 Brazil]

Gabriel Mascaro makes a refreshing feature film début with the quirky slow-burning drama "Ventos de Agosto" [Eng. Title: August Winds]. Yes, it's a drama only in the broadest sense of the word, but that shouldn't distract from the high traditions of film making that it draws from.











Set in a remote northeastern coastal village of Brazil, the film focuses on the lives of two young people; one is Shirley (Dandara de Morais) - a rock music loving city girl who had moved to the village to look after her elderly grandmother. For a living, she drives a tractor transporting coconuts from a local plantation, but she yearns to become a tattoo artist and practices her skills on the unfortunate farm animals at her home.

Shirley goes out with a village lad and co-worker named Jeison (Geová Manoel Dos Santos). They spend some of their free time together in a little dinghy on the sea, where Jeison free-dives to would catch octopus and other sea creatures while Shirley catches some sun (until this film, I never knew a can of cola could be used as sunblock). On occasion, Jeison recovers unusual artefacts from the sea bed like skull and bones, whose history they'll try to identify by enquiring around.

A meteorologist researching the pattern of trade winds arrives in their village in August, since that is also the season for tropical storms and high tides in the area, and he sets about recording the sound of the winds as part of his study. The village folk also erect emergency sandbanks to try and protect their properties in anticipation of the torrential downpours and curiously watch the meteorologist go about his motions.

Shortly after, a bloated corpse half-eaten by fish surfaces, and Jeison takes upon himself to become its custodian until the police arrive. But they don't, and Jeison will eventually have to do something about the rotting corpse at his doorstep. We watch the unfolding drama as the elemental forces of nature - life, death, the sea, and the August winds play out their parts unstintingly and unapologetically, in a world that is changing...

Much of the film is observational - like a documentary, but serves us ample opportunity to reflect upon what we see on the screen. In a style reminiscent of Corn Island, but altogether more celebratory, witty, and life affirmative; it is a beautiful portrait of a corner of rural Brazil that we don't often see but which has universal appeal. Gabriel Mascaro is an exciting director whose work we need to keep an eye on, and I'm already looking forward to his second feature that should be out soon. Needless to say, the film is Highly Recommended Viewing..!

 

The Nudity: Dandara de Morais and Geová Manoel Dos Santos
There are a couple of scenes that feature some delightfully frank nudity; the first is when Shirley sunbathes nude in the boat, and the second is after Shirley and Jeison make love on top of harvested coconuts in their tractor truck. They're worth checking out!



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A force of nature: "Gabriela, Cravo e Canela" [1983 Brazil]

Jorge Amado is one of the most revered authors from Brazil, and after phenomenal success in bringing to film his earlier novel "Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos", director Bruno Barreto adapted yet another popular novel of his, "Gabriela, Cravo e Canela" [Eng. Title: Gabriela], to reasonable acclaim.













Set in 1925, in the cocoa producing town of Ilhéus where the author himself grew up, it wryly observes the social changes happening at the time when the backwater town was finally opened up to direct trade and opportunities following an improvement in infrastructure. It was also a time when refugees from the drought-hit north came pouring into town - one of whom, covered in dirt through the long trek, was a young woman named Gabriela (Sonia Braga).

She gets picked up by a bar owner named Nasib (Marcello Mastroianni), a Syrian-Italian immigrant himself, to work as his personal cook at home. Not only does the unassuming Gabriela turn out to be an outstanding cook, but also a vivacious, sensual, and free-spirited woman, whose likes the conservative town had never seen. Impressed by his demeanour and mature looks, she offers herself willingly to Nasib, who could hardly believe his luck when they become lovers. But soon, the town's men begin to take interest in her too, offering her various incentives to move in with them. A loyal Gabriela politely refuses those offers.

A jealous Nasib, aware of the attention Gabriela gets everywhere, wants her as his own, and proposes marriage after getting his best friend and Mayor's son Tonico Bastos (Antonio Cantafora) to prepare/forge her identity papers. Gabriela was quite content remaining Nasib's cook and lover, but she nevertheless acquiesces to his wishes, and after their marriage, the dynamic of their relationship changes.

While Nasib tries to impart some 'refined culture' into his new wife Gabriela and force her to change her attire and manners, little did he anticipate that it would backfire spectacularly. A telling moment in the film is when Gabriela asks Nasib how it could possibly be more fun listening to a poet one barely understands, when compared to watching a circus performance. She finds the hypocrisy of the upper classes amusing, and sneaks off to the circus after Nasib falls sleep.

The film may have decided to shower greater attention to the sensual and sexual aspect of Gabriela's relationship with Nasib, but it's not difficult to see that Gabriela the character also stands as an allegory for 'the New World' itself. Her raw, untamed, and pure nature is clearly at odds with the 'old' world that's dictating terms, but she resists and sets her own terms while dealing with them. There is a social and political undercurrent to events happening in Ilhéus, and while that may not be the film's focus, it is nevertheless discernible. The film, like the novel, starts with an almost casual act of brutality and the people stand in solidarity with the perpetrator. He will however, face justice towards the end - a sign that change is in the air.




This isn't the veteran director's finest film, but I chose to review it mainly for its casting. Marcelo Mastroianni was already a superstar back in Italy when the film was made (though past his prime), but he nevertheless chose to take on this atypical role of a not-too-perfect Nasib to good effect. I'm aware that "Gabriela" has been made and remade several times, but it will be difficult to compare anyone to a Sonia Braga - she is Gabriela in every sense in the film - sensual, and as convincing as she was Dona Flor in Barreto's earlier film. Mastroianni and Ms Braga bring an explosive chemistry to their characters, and it works. It's also a memorable film that accurately recreates an earlier period in Brazil - and therefore Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon.com DVD Link [NTSC]

 

The Nudity: Sonia Braga, Tania Boscoli, and Antonio Cantáfora
Among mainstream films with liberal nudity, "Gabriela" is certainly a classic, because Sonia Braga who plays the titular character is at her most uninhibited. She's also often without knickers in her scenes, but it's not gratuitous - only part of a 'natural' characterisation, even if some of the characters she interacts with come out as leery and lewd. In addition to Ms. Braga's scenes, there is nudity in a post-sex scene featuring Tania Boscoli as Gloria, offering spending money to her young lover. Antonio Cantáfora's character is also caught while having sex with Gabriela, and runs through the street without any clothes on.



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A film review: "Ponte Aérea" [2015, Brazil]

Julia Rezende's romantic drama "Ponte Aérea" [Eng. Title: Air Bridge] is about a modern-day long-distance relationship that develops between a young couple living in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo respectively.









Amanda (Letícia Colin) and Bruno (Caio Blat) meet by chance when their flight to São Paulo gets diverted to a different airport due to bad weather. Coming from vastly different backgrounds, they were otherwise quite unlikely to have crossed paths; while she's an ambitious executive in a major ad agency steadily climbing up the corporate ladder in São Paulo, he's the laid-back creative-type still figuring out what to do with life in down town Rio.

A one-night stand in the hotel they're accommodated in will lead to further 'chance' encounters between the two in both São Paulo and Rio, and as Amanda gets to know Bruno better, a tentative romance blossoms. Bruno, visiting São Paulo to reconnect with his estranged but now bedridden father will learn that he also has a half brother young enough to be his son, and before he could come to terms with it, the little boy will become his responsibility.

All this is big change for Bruno, and when Amanda declares her interest in helping him build a career, it becomes too much for him to take, as he feels burdened by others' expectations. He disappears for a while, and refuses to answer Amanda's calls and frantic messages.

After holding a successful show of his own artworks, Bruno meets Amanda again at an airport lounge, just as they had met for the very first time - by chance, and just as they rued missed opportunities in nurturing what they had going, they also leave a door open for reconciliation and a possible reunion. I'm sorry if I've thrown away an explicit spoiler while describing the storyline, but I could see this coming from miles away and wasn't at all surprised when it ended the way it did. It is a typical mainstream film with a mainstream ending. But I have no doubt that some would love the film to bits - after all, it has some rather likeable faces, featured in interesting locales, and boasts some pretty decent production values.

DVD Purchase Link [NTSC]

 

The Nudity: Letícia Colin and Caio Blat
There is brief nudity from the couple during and after some sex scenes.



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Disrupting harmony: "O Lobo atrás da Porta" [2013 Brazil]

Director Fernando Coimbra's promising feature-film début "O Lobo atrás da Porta" [Eng. Title: Wolf at the Door] starts as a suspense-thriller but pretty quickly veers off into a drama. Set against the backdrop of down-town Rio de Janeiro, the suspense associated with the kidnapping of a child is relatively short-lived, the film thereafter delves into the motive behind the kidnapper's actions.










Sylvia (Fabiula Nascimento) arrives to pick her child from the nursery as usual, but the surprised staff member reminds her that it was she who called earlier to allow her friend Sheila to collect the kid, since she was unwell and wont be able to make it.

When the police interview staff members, it becomes clear that whoever impersonated Sylvia's friend was well known to the child, because she instinctively ran towards her for a hug. But Sylvia doesn't even have a friend named Sheila, and husband Bernardo (Milhem Cortaz) is brought in for questioning. As soon as he learns of his daughter's kidnapping, he blames it on Rosa (Leandra Leal), the woman he'd been having an affair with over the past year.

As the detective questions Rosa, she initially denies any involvement in the kidnapping and comes up with a different version of events on that day. When grilled further, she admits that it was she who kidnapped the child, and opens her back story and her affair with Bernardo. It touches on how they met, and how she was misled into believing that he was not married. She also mentions his physical abuse for befriending Sylvia, how she had an abortion forced upon her, and Bernardo's general unpleasantness...

The drama is a pretty good first effort by Coimbra - one can see stylistic influences from the likes of Bruno Dumont and Carlos Reygadas from his long, almost static camera takes, and frequent use of close-ups. It is just as well that he had the right actors to help, particularly Leandra Leal who handles the sharp contradictions within her film-character with aplomb - at one moment she's the vulnerable, suffering, and innocent girl, and in the next she's a doggedly determined woman with a strong appetite for sex. The camera work is good, but I couldn't help feeling that the grungy-industrial soundtrack might have been overdone a bit. My main problem with the film however, is its unmistakeable moral overtones. The 'wolf' in the title refers to disruption in a family's harmony - as in this case, by the extramarital affair - the clear message being that infidelity is wrong, and abortion is cruel. Having said that, Coimbra does exceptionally well in holding the viewer's curiosity for the most part of proceedings, and also manages to insert an unexpected twist in the plot towards the end - a promising début that's Recommended Viewing..!

 

The Nudity: Leandra Leal
There are two instances of brief nudity from Leandra Leal playing Rosa, the second of which is a bit longer. There is also a brief backside flash from Fabiula Nascimento who plays Sylvia, while getting out of bed.



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A film review: "Baixio das Bestas" [2006 Brazil]

"That stench you feel is that of a rotting world", exclaims Heitor to his neighbour and friend Mario, referring to falling standards of honour and respect within society. He ticks off a 'permissive' culture with 'loose morals', and castigates skimpily clad hostesses appearing on TV. He alleges that these occurrences are due to the lack of 'real men' with a sense of shame and authority. It is the same Heitor who will also display his teenage granddaughter naked to paying strangers at a truck stop. It is the same Heitor who gropes and treats the motherless child as slave, and it is the same monster who's also her biological father.

In "Baixio das Bestas" [Eng. Title: Bog of Beasts], Cláudio Assis pulls no punches in giving his tuppence-worth concerning sexual exploitation in the hinterlands of northern Brazil - a land of sugar plantations, poverty-stricken labourers, and denuded industry. The place is so poor that even prostitutes struggle to make a living; they'd put up with the worst kind of psychos to get by, because whatever business there is, is frequently siphoned off by pubescent (and younger) girls newly sold into slavery, often by family. It is the perfect playground for bored rich kids from city to indulge their misogyny in over their weekends. The film loosely follows two sub-plots that converge towards the end, but they're not the main focus because we mostly see them as faceless, voiceless people going about their lives - exploiting or suffering.










Fifteen year old Auxiliadora (played by a twenty one year old Mariah Teixeira) is the breadwinner for Heitor (played by Fernando Teixeira - and no relation to the former). Apart from cooking and 'looking after' her grandfather, she offers a mobile laundry service for townspeople, and is also the weekly strip show attraction at a highway truck-stop, overseen by Heitor himself.

Auxiliadora doesn't speak very much. True to her cruelly ironic name, which refers to someone who protects and helps, we watch her stoically go about her errands with an efficient, noble, almost automated fluency without as much as uttering a word. But her story is telling; she speaks for numerous souls in the same predicament as hers, almost everywhere even today. Circumstances will conspire to force her already desperate existence through hell and beyond, before she eventually discovers a way to survive.

Cicero (Caio Blat) is the son of an industrialist living and studying in Recife, only returning to his home town during weekends and holidays. After lazing around all day at home where a self-absorbed mother fails to establish any authority, he spends evenings and nights out with fellow-rich kid Everardo (Matheus Nachtergaele) who he's also in awe with, and who along with other layabouts, terrorise the neighbourhood and its brothels.

Their secret haunt is a disused cinema, owned by one of the gang members' father. They drink, pore over strewn film cuttings from porn films (there's apparently a lot to study from 70's pornochanchada), talk politics, play with guns, and viciously abuse prostitutes naive enough to visit their lair. The cinema aspect of the narrative also presents director Assis opportunities to expand on his symbolisms. "The best thing about cinema, is that you can do whatever you want", says Everardo, pointedly breaking the fifth wall during a passage of play. True, these guys can indeed get away with anything..!

The film is among the more brutal ones you're likely to come across. It is depressing as it is distressing, and there won't be a Hollywood-style finale even if you wait for the end-credits to finish rolling. Assis has a difficult subject to work with, and while it's not nearly as nuanced as his later films, it has a raging fire inside it - burning in solidarity with the people and the region that he too hails from. Almost every main character in the film symbolise something - they may be of the extreme kind, but they're also real - some of the horrendous scenes even mirror what we read in news bulletins these days, when we momentarily feel ashamed for belonging to the human race. It looks like nothing much has changed.

There are iconographic characterisations in the film, like the one played by Irandhir Santos as a cesspit/grave digger, who's in love but helpless in rescuing Auxiliadora from her grandfather - he represents a conscientious and aspirational Brazil that whistles its way through adversity and yet manages to party whenever it can. The cane plantations too are a film-character, and its burning towards the end represents regeneration and new life. Scenes featuring the region's native folk art of maracatu signify values and traditions that are maintained, against many odds.

The film scores very well in its technical values, and includes some of Assis' signature tracking shots courtesy of Walter Carvalho's engaging camera work. It has an eclectic but memorable soundtrack and the vibrant maracatu beats transport you across the ocean, to a more ancient time. The performances are real - disturbingly so, and many of the actors have since gone on to become household names - not because of this film, of course. Watching it is anything but pleasant - it is shocking and it will make you angry, but it is also a reality that needs to be told, an issue that needs to be addressed by society as a whole, and is naturally Highly Recommended Viewing..!

DVD Enquiry Link [NTSC]
This was among the pricier DVD's ordered recently through a Brazilian friend of mine. For a modern film, it is also inexplicably letterboxed-widescreen, but it does include English subtitles. Regardless, this film's crying out for a proper re-authoring!

 

The Nudity: Mariah Teixeira, Hermila Guedes, Matheus Nachtergaele, Dira Paes, and Caio Blat
The film features scenes of gang rape and other appalling forms of abuse, and no 'balanced' individual will enjoy watching it. The victims' pain and humiliation is plain to see even if one must have a degree of imagination to actually feel it themselves. These actors - either the abusers or the abused, must surely have gone through a bit of soul-searching before and after the film-shoot. Director Assis too appears (uncredited) as one of the gropers during a strip scene.



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A film review: "Crime Delicado" [Beto Brant, 2005 Brazil]

Beto Brant, whose films hitherto were mainly crime thrillers (including the very exceptional O Invasor), breaks genre and ventures into the unknown with his fragmented and stylistic exploration of love, sex, and art, through the drama "Crime Delicado" [Eng. Title: Delicate Crime].





Antonio (Marco Ricca] is a respected theatre critic - something of a celebrity in his own right, and renowned for his pithy, uncompromising observations on the plays that he reviews. He lives on his own, and can often be seen in a nearby restaurant during mealtimes.

It is on one of these occasions that Antonio notices Inês, a twenty-something woman casting glances at him from across the room. He joins her and they get chatting. Soon, he's with her in her apartment, trying to figure out what to do next, for he's only been made aware that she's an amputee after she gets up to leave with him.

The awkward encounter however kept playing in Antonio's mind, and before long, he becomes obsessed with her - her fragility, and her imperfect beauty. He also becomes jealous when he finds out that she's a nude model for a middle-aged painter, lives in his apartment, and possibly also has a strong sexual relationship with him. This will lead Antonio into dangerous territory, that will culminate in an accusation for rape, after he invites himself into her apartment late one night.

The courtroom testimonies, shot in black and white, are interspersed with other back events that paint the picture of an Antonio who's plainly clueless about real women and love in practice, despite his grasp of these subjects when seen in arts. The back-stories will also depict the making of an erotic painting, with the painter José (played by Felipe Ehrenberg, a painter in real-life) working intimately in the nude with his model Inês (played by Lilian Taublib, an amputee herself).

José's impassioned defence of his artwork will triangulate a connection between art, sex, and love - themes that director Brant had wanted to explore. In addition, the film features snippets from plays that Antonio reviews, whose segments were selected to further its theme. But on at least three occasions, the film also takes on a poetic tone, including the final scene where we see Inês in an art gallery with José's artworks on display.

The film makes a case that we humans can be just as obsessed with imperfection, as we might with perfection - that obsession is indiscriminate, and doesn't follow logic, whether the object we're obsessed with is captivating or banal. Inês may seem banal to some, but she discovers her specialness through the artist's eyes, whose vision and craftsmanship is heightened in return, through the bond that they create.

While the scene of the painting-creation may remind viewers of Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse, their context and subtext are entirely different - one is striving to find beauty and sensuality, while the other is trying to strip away the veneer. The film nevertheless fabulously explores its theme without inhibition - the actors too collaborate in the endeavour wholeheartedly, and is therefore Highly Recommended Viewing..!

Trivia:

• The film also features Cláudio Assis - another contemporary Brazilian director, in a memorable scene where he appears as a drunkard
• The film's cinematography is by Assis-regular, Walter Carvalho - it's heartening to see that these brilliant mavericks do like working with one another

DVD Purchase Link [NTSC]

 

The Nudity: Lilian Taublib, Felipe Ehrenberg, and Maria Manoella
There are two scenes featuring nudity - the first is from Maria Manoella who plays stage actress Maria Luiza, seemingly grovelling to Antonio for a favourable review, only for her to judge him in kind later. The second, longer scene features a bold and uninhibited Lilian Taublib and Felipe Ehrenberg working on the painting, in a rare instance of an amputee actress appearing completely in the nude for film.




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