Gabriela, Cravo e Canela

Gabriela is a great romance by Jorge Amado, a great Brazilian writer. In 1975 it was adapted to TV novel. It was very successful and we could see a young Sonia Braga at the beginning of her career. Years later we could see Sonia again but she was not young anymore. But her talent was much better. The movie only shows sexy scenes and the political history was on the second hand unfortunately. But there was a present for us. We could see in a short time a great Brazilian actress called Maria Zenaide, with her beautiful eyes making a little participation. On the other hand we could see her again and we could ask where are the great actresses of Brazil ? Unfortunately Brazil is a country with no memory and only shows what the directors think are good. Thanks God we can see Maria Zenaide making educacional commercial and she still sings Brazilian Songs though her band Grupo Avelloz, with good singers and musicians: Will Tom and Teresa Carvalho(both from Dama de Paus band), Jorge Som and Chaguinha Lima(from Siri Atômico band).

This 1983 remake of Gabriela, directed by Bruno Barretto, features THE most sensuous performance of Sonia Braga on film--interesting, considering she was in the 1976 original film, also as the title character. But Barretto does things the previous director did not do, and nails the story, as well as casting, also interestingly, Marcello Mastrioanni as the Syrian Nacib who is entranced by Gabriela's obvious femaleness. In what is very likely the most sensuous scene in filmdom--or certainly one of them--he has her over a first floor window. You can actually feel the room temperature rising around you when this coupling is going on.

What it is that Barretto nails is the spirit of Jorge Amado's novel--that which captures the uncontrolled and uncontrollable desires of a woman who, as uneducated as she is, rules men with her looks. Nothing new there, but there's no other film like the 1983 Gabriela for "fleshing out" (you will, I am sure, pardon the pun) this concept.

The Mastrioanni-Braga chemistry is white hot and that's true not only for the coupling they do, but also for the arguments they have. Only when there is passionate love can there be passionate arguments, and they are definitely here, no question, making this a film that grabs you by the throat, and by the privates, and squeezes in a gentle way, until all you can finally do is gasp. And with good reason.

This is truly ripe for a DVD release. Where is it?????

Gabriela, Clove & Cinnamon was the novel which marked Jorge Amado's break from pure class warfare--he received several Stalin prizes in his early career!--and embrace of the joys of Brazilian humanity. Sonia Braga has starred in adaptations of three of Amado's novels, all of them magnificent (the other two are Dona Flor and Tieta). I won't say she is here at her sexiest--Sonia Braga is sexy any time she's on screen--but this is one of her best movies, helped much by the other players, among them, curiously, Marcello Mastrioanni as the Syrian immigrant who hires Gabriela as cook and quickly finds himself in a deeper relationship. The plot here involves attitudes toward women and their sexuality, an eventual welcome breakdown of the double standard. and progress of law and order in a society too often ruled by lawlessness and custom. Amado dies without getting a Nobel Prize for Literature: Gabriela and the other two films mentioned convincingly demonstrate why he should have won it.

Second film of Sonia Braga for director.Bruno Baretto, after the hit "Dona Flora and Her Two Husbands" Ms Braga carries the film, not Marcelo Mastroanni. A film that openly discusses corruption in Brazil.

There is the contrast between the Syria of Nacib's father and the Brazil of our movie's present. In Syria, barkeeper Nacib tells us, they kill and mutilate sexy women, and he declares his sympathy with that kind of treatment, but it seems that Brazil is a woman's country.

Gabriela is a fantasy of a completely unaffected, natural woman, who rises out of poverty and without education, but is completely confident of who she is with a marvelous natural grace, and is frankly open in her sexuality and lust for her employer Nacib, played by Marcello Mastroiani. But the pure femininity, I would like to call it innocence, of Sonia Braga's Gabriela, prevails. Such a character is probably only a man's fantasy, but it seems that nowhere more than Brazil would such a creature exist. And how Brazilian that not only is Gabriela, without comment, of unknown and obviously mixed race origins, but so is Nacib, who tells, after constant times of being called "Turk", that he is actually Italian, born of Syrian father and Italian mother.

Although this movie is fairly explicit sexually, it doesn't dwell on its sex scenes. It is its passion and Braga's beauty make this the sexiest mainstream flick I've seen, a heat-wave.