Dona Flor und ihre zwei Ehemänner

Dona Flor, Sonia Braga, ( The Kiss of the Spider Woman and Robert Redford; Milagro Beanfield War) is married to Vadinho, José Wilker ( well known Brazilian Soapopera star). Vadinho likes women and Flor is a subservient wife who gives cooking lessons because she is well known in town for her good cooking. Vadinho never misses a chance to flirt and even to touch other women in front of Flor, who never catches him. Flor is great denial because she loves him and they have a great sex life. Vadinho dies. She remarries the town pharmacist, Mauro Mendonça (another famous Soap opera actor) who is a complete prude. Vadinho then begins to show up as a ghost, and keeps making fun of her prude husband. Well many funny moments of great laughter. Based on a book by Jorge Amado, one of the foremost Brazilian writers ( Gabriela, Cravo e Canela), this is a fun plot and very much into the Brazilian culture. You must give Vadinho a break at the beginning of the movie because machismo is somewhat accepted in the Latin culture, and as the plot develops his machismo will make you laugh. Well directed by Bruno Barreto, who directed ( Four Days in September) movie that was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film in 1988, Dona Flor will give great insights into Brazilian culture and a flavor to taste Brazilian food. Very spice, and fun Movie. I highly recommend!

If you hear of a movie wherein a deceased man's spirit sticks around and keeps an eye on his lover, you'd probably think of "Ghost". It turns out that another one was Bruno Barreto's "Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos" ("Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" in English). The title character is a culinary teacher in 1943 Bahia whose uncouth husband dies, except that his ghost won't leave.

In addition to the story, the movie gives on a feeling of 1940s Brazil: the music, the clothes, and the general mindset. I've never read the source novel - and probably never will, given how long it takes me to get through books - but the movie is one fine piece of work. Sônia Braga, José Wilker and Mauro Mendonça put it outstanding (and funny) performances. I recommend it.

In the dawn of the Sunday of the Carnival of 1943, in Salvador, the thirty-three years old Valdomiro 'Vadinho' Santos Guimarães (José Wilker) dies, with many internal organs not working well. The widow, the teacher of culinary art Dona Flor (Florípides) Guimarães (Sônia Braga), misses him and remember their lives together along seven years of marriage. Gambler, Bohemian, hard-drinker, "bon-vivant", but also good lover, Vadinho left Flor in the honeymoon, after the consumption of his obligations, to gamble in a casino and spend the rest of the night in a brothel. But he knew how to treat and love Flor, and in the end she made peace with him. After his death, Flor marries Dr. Teodoro Madureira (Mauro Mendonça), a good husband and hard- worker, with a great culture and player of oboe in a local orchestra. Teodoro gives a comfortable and very stable life to Flor, but without passion in his love, having boring sexual intercourse with her. After one year of marriage, Flor misses so much the sex life with Vadinho that she includes him in her sexual life. "Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos" is a delightful transposition to the cinema of the greatest best-seller of the Brazilian literature, having more than two millions readers. The naive and metaphoric story of a woman in the 40's, in the interior of Brazil, who has a repressed sexual life in her second marriage, and fantasizes thinking in the love of her former husband, is indeed a classic in Brazil. Sonia Braga in the beginning of her career, with her very Brazilian type, is magnificent in the role of Dona Flor, and José Wilker is the personification of the "Brazilian loafer" of the 40's, wearing white suit, asking for money to his friends, spending the money in gamble, women and booze, and having a woman to support him. This movie was awarded in the "Festival of Gramado (Brazil)" in 1977, and was nominated to the Golden Globe of 1979 in the category Best Foreigner Movie. This movie was recently released on DVD in Brazil. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos"

One of Bruno Barreto's earliest works, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is a comical story about human desires and the need for balance. This movie is for everyone who ever wanted to mix and match the qualities of failed lovers into the perfect partner. You will laugh and see yourself in Dona Flor's struggles.

If actress Regina Duarte is the "girlfriend of Brazil", Sonia Braga is and will always the eternal "Gabriela", who yesterday turns 70 years old. It shone in Brazilian cinema in "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" (1976), an absolute success in Brazil, remaining for three decades as the most watched Brazilian film in theaters (over ten million viewers), a film that elevated the Brazil to the first world of international cinema, after the country winning the Palme d'Or in Cannes (1962) with "Keeper of Promises - the given word", a film by Anselmo Duarte.

Others relevant national titles in her career includes "A Dama do Lotação" (1978, directed by Neville D"Almeida), "A Moreninha" (1970, directed by Glauco Mirko Laurelli), "O Casal" (1975, directed by Daniel Filho) and "Eu Te Amo" (1981, directed by Arnaldo Jabor). Before the TV series "Gabriela" (1975), Sonia had acted in other series at the Globo Network.

In the seventies, she appeared as a hippie ("Irmãos Coragem, 1970) and as a emotionally confused girl (Selva de Pedra, 1972) until the explosion with the title character of the television adaptation of the novel "Gabriela, Cravo e Canela", written by Jorge Amado, a landmark of Brazilian TV that becamed her in a television big star and revolutionized her image - it's important to say that!

"Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands", also an adaptation of a book written by Jorge Amado transformed Sonia in an international star - in the Baftas she was nominated as most outstanding newcomer and the film had a Hollywood version, " Kiss Me Goodbye" (1982, directed by Robert Mulligan) with Jeff Bridges, James Caan and Sally Field, who was at the height of her success with the Oscar received for "Norma Rae" (1979, directed by Martin Ritt). Later, Sally and Sonia would act together in the series "Brothers and Sisters" (2006-2011).

Courageous, in the middle of eighties, she left Globo TV and migrated to the USA after the success and Oscar nominations earned by "The Kiss of the Spider Woman" (1985, by Hector Babenco). In Hollywood she appeared in "The Milagro Beanfield War" (1988, directed by Robert Redford), "The Burning Season" (1994, directed by John Frankenheimer) and "Moon Over Parador" (1988, directed by Paul Mazursky), besides shining in six episodes of "Sex and the City" (1998 -2004), when she played a lesbian envolved with Miranda (Kim Cattrall). In the USA, recognized for her talent, she was nominated three times for the Golden Globe (once for "Kiss of the Spider Woman") and once for the Emmy for "The Burning Season".