Gabriela, Cravo e Canela

Here's a film to see in the 21st century that is entertaining almost exclusively for its time-capsule quality, a tour back through time and Brazil, a Latin pot-boiler with a cook who's always simmering. The full-on sexy scenes with Sonia Braga add to the uninhibited foreign flavors.

The original title is "Gabriela, Clove & Cinnamon." No question she's a spicy dish, seemingly always ready & willing and never wearing (hot clingy) foundations under her dress. Hired as a house-cook, she becomes appreciated by the male locals, too, when she begins to bring a loving lunch (of food) to Nacib. Her presentation - and not the food - becomes a little too delicious for the male patrons and Nacib finds it necessary to reduce her exposure a bit.

Not quite sure about Marcello Mastroianni's appearance as Nacib except to get financing and generate some foreign box. Nevertheless, he's OK, even though his cook (Braga), then mistress, then wife to prevent the other locals from making her THEIR mistress eventually proves hard to manage ... and to keep satisfied. Finally, the duplicity common to females elevated from even the lowest social strata takes hold and generates conflict.

This film also is a look at a Latin male culture that is variously leering and lewd and legally lax in a way that makes 80's Brazil seem like much longer ago. One reviewer called this film a "male fantasy." At first maybe, surely, with Gabriela's happy, quick smoldering readiness ... but it becomes phantasm more than orgasm as Nacib finds her increasingly difficult to keep happy (like letting her go to the circus instead of a local society lecture). His desire is for her to be regarded as his wife instead of merely youth'ish house-help and wife-mistress. In the end ... well, you'll have to see.

And wasn't Mastroianni in another film called "Wifemistress?" (Yes.) It's better and more sophisticated - and maybe more sexy (in the uncut international version) with perhaps one of the loveliest and first and most natural non-porn displays of the vulva in film. It's a film that currently is difficult to find - cut or uncut.

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).

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.

Sonia Braga and Marcello Mastroianni are well-matched in this comedy set in the coastal town of Ilheus, Brazil, in the 1920's. Mastroanni is a paunchy, tired bachelor barkeeper who hires Braga, fresh out of the drought-stricken backlands, to be his cook. He is delighted to find, after she has cleaned herself up, that she is not only a terrific cook but also terrific in bed, and that she sees him as a very cute, studly young guy. But when he stubbornly tries to make their domestic arrangements into something more respectable, things start going downhill. Will our boy wise up in time?

From Jorge Amado's novel, Gabriela: Clove and Cinnamon. Music composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and arranged by Oscar Castro-Neves. Beautiful photography by Carlo di Palma. Lots of delightful small-town character humor.

This is the role that put Sonia Braga on the map when she played it on Brazilian TV in 1975. She was a sensation, and Gabriela was one of the highest-rated novelas ever aired in Brazil.

This was celebrated in its day. Probably most of it had to do with Sónia Braga being here.

In fact we have a combination that make the thing worthwhile: Tom Jobim and Jorge Amado. They are part of a recent creative Brazilian tradition, which consists in throwing interesting concepts into popular forms, things that people can recognize and identify to, as "pop" but which in fact is the work of intellectual creative minds. That's why we have "música popular brasileira" (brazilian 'pop' music), which contains bossa nova, which is in fact a branch fully developed by intellectual minds, with empathy for popular expressions. Jorge Amado does a similar thing with literature. He writes material that is soap-operish (and in fact was and is fully adapted into TV minor things)but at the same time works words and builds his own language, which flows on your ears as fluid as bossa nova (even if you don't understand Portuguese, try and hear it, you'll get what i mean).

These ability to be deep and popular at the same time is the biggest quality of Jobim and Amado, to me. The problem is that these minds can very easily be misunderstood, and taken for granted in what they mean, if the minds that interpret them and thin. So i admire this film, because people in it understood this. Not that this is fully achieved, on any matter. Sometimes it sounds half-baked, and the kind of explicit sexuality with no explicit sex it tries to depict is something so much explored in the last 25 years that this sounds very dated now.

Also, i don't think Braga would explode now as she did than, sexual conceptions for the Latin woman (preconcepcions)have evolved to someone who is both sensual and intellectual (Alice Braga, Sónia's niece is probably a good example). Sónia plays a rural type, she's spontaneous, has unshaved underarms, she's illiterate, she exists in the film for the sexual frictions and tensions she causes.

Well, sex is the core of Amado's writing. He chooses a close conservative environment, a kind of social still water, and throws a stone into that water (Braga). So she, through unconscious sensuality, commands the game, and moves the plot. Since they wanted to explore Sonia's effect in those days public, this is a terribly effective device (something like what is happening in a domestic scale with Soraia Chaves, in Portugal these days).

Complaints: Barreto has a good cinematic eye, and he works visually his shots and i appreciate that, but he was not sure whether he wanted to make a film about Sonia Braga and what moves around her or a film about a sensual woman in a closed village. I think he tried to mix both, and that's the failure. I'll get to his "Dona Flor...", same context, Amado and Braga as well, and see what he did there. Also, they avoided trying to explain why Gabriela, being so much in love, would screw another man, mostly being Mastroianni's best friend. We have a small clue, but it's not conclusive. It's 'just' a plot hole and i don't value that usually, but here it felt bad, it was important the insight on Gabriela.

A side note: i have a special interest in Portuguese colonial urbanism. I'm actually working right now on a final thesis on one of those cities, one of the best (ilha de Moçambique). This little city depicted (Parati, not Ilhéus) looks a good example as well, which apparently was heavily influenced by masonry in its conception. Watch the film on that matter alone, if you're interested in the theme. Some shots are really worth it.

My opinion: 3/5

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