Whether you are trying to learn
Portuguese or just want to know more about Brazilian culture, I
think you will find these films both enjoyable and educational.
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In the opening scenes of
Central Station, colorful crowds of Brazilians stream into and out
of a Rio de Janeiro train, pushing through doors and windows. You're
immediately pulled into the brutal vitality of a nation in motion,
setting the tone for a picturesque road movie that charts Brazil's
renaissance in a little boy's search for his father and an old woman's
emotional reawakening.
Carlos Diegues's Orfeu
brings the Orpheus myth (by way of the Vinicius De Moraes play, which
also inspired Marcel Camus's gorgeous Black Orpheus) into the
modern world of laptops and hip-hop, cell phones and street crime.
Orfeu (Toni Garrido), Rio de Janeiro's samba king and a kind of god to
his neighbors in the labyrinth of slums on Carioca Hill, is humbled by
his love for Euridice (Patricia França), a sweet and stunningly
beautiful girl from the provinces. Shot on location at Rio's fiery
Carnaval celebrations and on a dynamic recreation of Carioca Hill's
slums, Diegues's dazzling mix of musical extravaganza, romantic
tragedy, and gangland crime drama drops the myth into the poverty and
violence of slum life.
Many movies have tried to weave
a web of coincidences and quirky characters into a satisfying tale of
love, but few of them succeed. Bossa Nova, directed with a deft
touch and acted with simplicity and genuine charm, pulls it off. Mary
Ann (Amy Irving) is an American teaching English in Rio de Janeiro;
her husband died years before and she has given up on love. Lawyer
Pedro (Antonio Fagundes) is in the middle of a sticky divorce and
wants his wife back, but when he sees Mary Ann in the hallway outside
her language school, he is instantly smitten and starts taking her
class.
This unexpected pleasure from
Brazil has the feel of a magical fable crossing paths with a
contemporary comedy about sexual politics. Regina Casé stars as
Darlene, a young, unmarried mother who returns to her dusty hometown
with a baby in tow. Over the next few years, she is courted and
impregnated by one man, then another, and another, and another.
Promiscuous? Me You Them is a subtle, lovely work about the
heart's capacity for invention and acceptance.
Woman on Top
pretends to be your standard fish-out-of-water romantic comedy laced
with touches of magic realism. When you break it down and look at its
elements, however, it turns out to be different than most, which is
good. Hot Spanish star Penélope Cruz (All About My Mother)
plays Isabella Oliveira, a Brazilian chef who falls madly in love
with, and marries, a dashing waiter (Murilo Benício). Throughout her
life she's been a victim of motion sickness, and the only way she can
overcome it is by being in control, whether it's driving or being on
top during sex.
Behind the Sun
is a rapturous Western, a big film about a big, unwanted destiny
visited upon a vulnerable, young hero. Adapted from the novel
Broken April by Albanian writer Ismail Kadare (the story has been
transferred from Europe to Brazil's rugged, northeastern badlands in
1910), Behind the Sun concerns two families and their
long-running land war, which has robbed many a young man of his hope,
love and, ultimately, life. Sent by his aggrieved father to avenge the
slaying of an older brother, Tonho (Rodrigo Santoro), in torment,
carries out his bloody, ancestral obligation and then proposes a truce
between the families.
