Amélia

Very funny comedy of manners full of dark humor and magic realism about fictional moments world famous French actress Sarah Bernhard with the sisters of her Brazilian maid Amélia. Dialogues and situations are hilarious, exploring the problems of communication and contrast of cultures. There are many colorful characters, such as slf-centered and lunatic Sarah and the two Amélia's sisters and an additional household member (there are references to Lady Macbeth and to witches in Sarah Bernhard's lines, which may apply to herself and to the three unsophisticated women), the hyperactive assistant of Sarah who speaks in several languages but Portuguese (Betty Gofman had my second favoutite performance together with Béatrice Angenin and second only to Myrian Muniz, brilliant as the elder and rougher of the "witch" sisters), the Portuguese actor who tries to have some profit in that situation, and the businessman who frigthens indebted actress. A great ending for the film in which the French superstar always loked to Brazil with colonial eyes.

In 1905, the "divine" Sarah Bernhardt, the world's most famous actress of all time, for whom "La Tosca" and Oscar Wilde's "Salome" were written, decided to come to Rio de Janeiro (then Brazil's capital) for a third sojourn, after the huge successes of 1886 and 1893. But fate had tragic events in store for her: it was here, at the backstage of the now extinct Theatro Lírico, that she suffered a severe fall at the end of her "Tosca". In her "jump to death in the Tiber", she found no proper protection for her 61- year-old body and broke a leg that, 10 years later, had to be amputated due to successive complications -- though the amputation didn't prevent this remarkable woman from continuing her successful career until her death in 1923, playing a variety of roles that had her now perennially sitting down or reclined.

The episode above is a fact; director Ana Carolina creates fiction around it, by having Bernhardt (played with regal verve by French actress Béatrice Agénin) mingle with a Brazilian chambermaid (Marília Pêra, in a hearty cameo) and her greedy, backward, incredibly ignorant sisters (wonderful wreck-voiced old hag Myriam Muniz, comically over-sensitive Camilla Amado), transforming a footnote (pardon the pun!) in the diva's biography into an imaginative, very funny tale of clash of cultures and fatal misunderstandings.

This is one of the best films of director Ana Carolina, featuring hilarious dialog, great performances, very fine art direction, a delightfully twisted sense of humor and her very peculiar view on women's battles and confrontations, though the film is a bit too long and there's insufficient budget to recreate the splendor of Rio de Janeiro's Belle Époque. The patient viewer and all those interested in the divine Sarah will have a great time.