Fome de Amor

The weirdest film by Nelson Pereira dos Santos. It is gloomy, and the beginning seemed intriguing, with those dissonant sounds. As it advanced, however, with a non-linear hermetic narrative, strange edition and odd dialogues (not only for inserting English lines), it became quite hard to follow. If it were another director, I would not insist so much, but Nelson is the best Brazilian director ever (or at least the best of XXth century), and he deserved that.

The movie is pictorial, expressionist, experimental, and deals somewhat, in a not enough clear way, with repression, manipulation, vulnerability, greed and the dream of revolution in Latin America. There are some wisecracks which did not reach me probably because it did intend to reach only the initiates (the mute man who talks in different languages by just slighly beating with his fingers, for instance). It is widely known to be a movie against the military dictatorship, which began four years before and would still last almost twenty years more. However, it was neither an open blow against authoritarianism, nor an encrypted script which could deceive censorship pretending not to address politics (indeed there are quite fragrant sentences on left-wing dogmatism). Then, it is nothing more than an aesthetic exercise of breaking the rules.

By the way, is the loyal dog, who is hated by the greedy flaboyant woman, the only hope for the passive woman who speaks English and Marxist formulae in Spanish and for the fragile man who does not see or listen or speak? Both the latter were subject to loud laughs and not to interrupt carnival, as they posed no danger to the wicked scammers. Will the aforementioned flamboyant woman and the domineering and ambitious lier, that is, the scammer duo, effectively murder the lost rebels?

In New York, the painter Felipe (Arduíno Colassanti) is a loser, who meets the upper class and aspirant revolutionary Mariana (Irene Stefânia) and convinces her to live with him in his own island in Angra dos Reis. Once there, she finds that the place indeed belongs to the blind, deaf and dumb former revolutionary Alfredo (Paulo Porto), who lives in the location with his wife Ulla (Leila Diniz). Sooner, Mariana finds that Felipe has an affair with Ulla, married her only to steal her wealthy and plans to kill Alfredo and her.

"Fome de Amor" is a metaphoric and allegoric dated movie, made in many levels in a period when Brazil and most of the Latin America was under military dictatorship and severe censorship. There are many symbols related to the characters, such as: Felipe represents the alienated middle class, without political aspiration, aiming to make money and ending like a jester. Mariana represents the bourgeois and intellectual class, defending the revolution out of time through the teaching of MaoTse-tung in English. The people are symbolized by the children in the harbor, waiving without any participation of the process. Alfredo is the revolutionary leader that ends like the three monkeys, and with the pockets full of money. The movie ends in Carnival and it was all about money. However, the story has a confused and hermetic screenplay, without development of the characters or the situations, and there are sequences impossible to be understood. For example, the death of Mariana and Alfredo are only the death wish of Felipe and Ulla, or is not chronologically presented? My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Fome de Amor"("Hunger for Love")

In "Fome de Amor" ("Hunger for Love"), Alfredo (Paulo Porto), deaf, dumb and blind ex-revolutionary and his free-spirited wife Ulla (Leila Diniz) are on their seaside house and are visited by another couple : Mariana, a young frustrated pianist (Irene Stefânia) and her untrustworthy husband Felipe (Arduíno Colasanti). The two couples examine their relationships and experiment with swinging, with a lot of existentialist/revolutionary (gun traffic) issues and some nudity thrown in.

Nelson Pereira dos Santos, one of Brazil's all-time great filmmakers ("Rio 40 Graus", "Vidas Secas", "Boca de Ouro", "Memórias do Cárcere" etc) has less fortunate results with this very symbolic and hermetic "Fome de Amor" ("Hunger for Love"), in a time of extreme censorship in Brazil because of the military regime.

It was also a time for new directions for the Cinema Novo movement, which had abandoned the early-times "naïf" motives (the sertão, the macumba, the favelas) and moved nearer to the real background of the filmmakers themselves (politically concerned intellectuals -artists of bourgeois extraction). 'Fome de Amor" belongs with other NPSantos's films searching experimental techniques and story-telling (e.g. "Quem é Beta?"), and demands an unconventional and attentive audience.

The dialogues alternate from intelligent to codified to hammy, from explosive to plain boring. The cast, though, is quite good, with veteran Paulo Porto, male heartthrob Arduíno Colasanti looking good, but most of all the lovely leading ladies who are a knockout: curvaceous and wonderful 23 year-old Leila Diniz, Brazil's greatest sex symbol of the late 60s/early 70s (who died tragically in a plane crash in 1972) and lovely 20-year-old Irene Stefânia. If you get a chance to see "Fome de Amor" you maybe frustrated with the film's symbolic language, but you certainly won't be let down by these two beautiful stars. My vote: 5 out of 10.