Die Poetin

Reaching for the Moon (2013)

Wonderful! The story of the Brazilian years of the great North American poet, Elizabeth Bishop. There are so many beautiful aspects to the characters, their setting, and their relationships it's hard to know where to begin. And even better, on top of all this, is the historical recreation of the times, and the changing political climate of Brazil. It's touching and uplifting and tragic.

The original title of this is "Flores Raras" because these were indeed rare people, and doing beautiful things. And yes, they were reaching for the moon but you might rather say they reached the moon. Succeeding at something is more than literally fulfilling.

The plot has a slightly meandering, unfamiliar arc through the main events, and there are times when you think one thing and then suddenly another happens. Don't blame bad writing, but rather realize that this is how life is, and how it really was. Remember as well that these are artists of privilege at work, they have money and education and act with a kind of license and liberation that we all should feel. And so it's unpredictable.

As a kind of true insight into the poetic process you might find few parallels in the movies. You learn their temperaments, and how circumstances make the artist and the poet come to their best. The intimate circumstances are about love, a really true deep love that grows between these two women. Their professional needs reinforce and conflict with their personal needs, but they make it work.

The outside circumstances are hard to understand from 2014. Brazil was once a very different country, filled with far more freedom and sense of liberation. (This seems to be a direction that are pointed in again, though going through fits and starts.) But the world in post-War Brazil was one of possibility. It was a haven (not just for ex-Nazis) and a growing "New World," but it was also stuffed with poverty (which the movie ignores), a legacy still at hand.

And this is exciting stuff. The movie moves mostly through the confines of their big, gorgeous estate in the hills, but it also shows us the city, and the larger world. So Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares, an important architect of the era. grow and suffer and see their world fall apart around them (Brazil fell under dictatorship in the mid 1960s). It's filmed with utter beauty, the acting is sharp and convincing, and the writing (not surprisingly) is fluid and tight. Great stuff.

Lovely. A story here that is not overshadowed by the relationships, politics, or agenda. It is, simply beautifully filmed, the beaches of Rio De Janeiro, the beautiful home Lota has deigned in part to accommodate her new lover, poet Elizabeth Bishop, completely played by Miranda Otto.

Otto is at once restrained yet yearning, a Vassar graduate visiting her friend, who initially is puzzled (and indeed overwhelmed) by the beauty and passion of South America.

She plays the American New England spinster type well, without a stereotype here. We can feel she wants, and NEEDS to break free from societal restraints.

The filming of the rain forests, the owls at night, the visuals are incredible. Lota Soares was politically connected and designed the park near Carioca beach, the title infers, reaching for the moon has so may more connotations for each woman.

What is most refreshing is the way this film is written, sensitive to the issues each woman experiences, it is an individual and a private journey.

The actress portraying Carlotta Soares is affecting and sad, and Miranda Otto is quite believable as Bishop. The story is beautiful and sad, and the scenery of Brazil is not to be missed, simply beautiful, and beautifully filmed. 10/10

Glória Pires, as Lota de Macedo Soares, dominates this film to such a degree, we wonder why it's focus is the poet Elizabeth Bishop, brittlely acted by Miranda Otto. I suppose you could argue, "That's how it was both in life and their relationship," but as a viewer, our interest begs to know more about Soares.

This is a beautiful film about very talented, privileged people. An icey, supposedly repressed Bishop finds herself in the hot house of the Brazilian estate of Soares. Their torrid relationship is the subject of the film. We forget how dangerous same sex relationships were at the time, and film doesn't try to recreate that peril. And that makes some of the dynamics that plague the relationship a question. Why is Bishop able to sail above disastrous break-up; why is Soares destroyed.

What is fascinating is the liberation that the Soares estate, Petrópolis, provides. It's an Eden-like setting where the relationship flourishes. But we want more than "extraordinary people" have the same challenges in relationships as we, the ordinary. When Pulitzer Prises or major architectural commissions are awarded, the changes in dymanics that it brings aren't really explored. And I think these extraordinaryly talented people deserve a deeper, perhaps darker, film given the times they lived in and pressures it brought.

I enjoyed this story of a lengthy midlife love affair, "based on" (that is, "not cemented to the known facts of") real women of some mid-century renown. One, American poet Elizabeth Bishop, is quiet, slow to warm to strangers or share working drafts of her poems. See if Miranda Otto doesn't remind you of Deborah Kerr in her memorable 1940s and '50s roles (and clothes). In Brazil to visit an old college friend, Elizabeth meets Lota de Macedo Soares, a charismatic commander of attention and glamorously trousered architect. They become lovers and make their life in Brazil. All the characters, including a close male friend of Lota's and one of Elizabeth's, are revelations in the best sense: mature but unfinished adults, they meet their circumstances over nearly 20 years in ways not even they might be able to predict. Mark Twain said that fiction is obliged to meet our expectations but the truth isn't. Central Casting can provide "types," but history offers people like nobody else, which is why you'll find discussions here and elsewhere complaining that these lesbians were not put through their proper lesbian plot paces! The drunks were sometimes sober! People got depressed without enough foreshadowing! Ignore all that. This is a good quiet story, mostly but not all sad, about people learning themselves as they go, living genuinely if not always bravely.

And anyone who's ever dreamed of having a writer's sanctuary will fall rapturously in love with the al fresco study Lota builds for Elizabeth. Must be seen to be appreciated!

This is a beautifully filmed movie about the lives of two exceptional women whose lives collided in the early 50s and went on for 17 years. Oh - it's a true story, BTW.

The locations are spectacular in a quiet way and worth the watch on their own. They added one star.

I am ashamed to say I was not aware of Elizabeth Bishop. Now I am looking forward to reading her material.

Hope you enjoy this film.