Last year’s international must-see, THE SECRET AGENT/’25 (not seen here), was a breakthru for Brazilian writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho, in spite of nearly twenty years’ work. But this earlier high-profile film probably not the best place to start.* Sonia Braga, best remembered Stateside for KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN/’85 and the popular, if vaguely appalling DONA FLOR AND HER TWO HUSBANDS/’76, stars in this lumpy saga as a hold out tenant who refuses to leave her handsome, if frozen-in-time beachfront apartment, stopping a big development project by stubbornly refusing even good offers family and ex-tenants pressure her to accept so they can get their payouts. We’ve seen this one before, though with a lot less sex. Everyone seems to be getting it on. Even those pushy developers rent the deserted apartment directly above Sonia for a noisy orgy. It doesn’t drive Braga away; instead, a peek at the action makes her horny enough to call up a handsome sex worker and have a go at her place. (Okay, we’ve not seen that one before.) There’s something ‘off’ (performative) about her encounters with middle-aged gal-pals and worried family members; as if we were watching The Real Widows of Recife. Things get only weirder as Mendonça Filho strips gears to shift into a third act of skullduggery & property rights in a dastardly plot to degrade the building and force her out with a termite-riddled coup de théâtre. Well, something’s termite ridden.
WATCH THIS, NpOT THAT/LINK: *Instead, try Mendonça Filho’s intriguing first feature NEIGHBORING SOUNDS/’14. (THE SECRET AGENT is in our cue.) https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/07/o-som-ao-reder-neighboring-sounds.html
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