Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos

Dona Flor, Sonia Braga, ( The Kiss of the Spider Woman and Robert Redford; Milagro Beanfield War) is married to Vadinho, José Wilker ( well known Brazilian Soapopera star). Vadinho likes women and Flor is a subservient wife who gives cooking lessons because she is well known in town for her good cooking. Vadinho never misses a chance to flirt and even to touch other women in front of Flor, who never catches him. Flor is great denial because she loves him and they have a great sex life. Vadinho dies. She remarries the town pharmacist, Mauro Mendonça (another famous Soap opera actor) who is a complete prude. Vadinho then begins to show up as a ghost, and keeps making fun of her prude husband. Well many funny moments of great laughter. Based on a book by Jorge Amado, one of the foremost Brazilian writers ( Gabriela, Cravo e Canela), this is a fun plot and very much into the Brazilian culture. You must give Vadinho a break at the beginning of the movie because machismo is somewhat accepted in the Latin culture, and as the plot develops his machismo will make you laugh. Well directed by Bruno Barreto, who directed ( Four Days in September) movie that was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film in 1988, Dona Flor will give great insights into Brazilian culture and a flavor to taste Brazilian food. Very spice, and fun Movie. I highly recommend!

I read Dona Flor before I saw the film. It is both my favorite Brazilian novel and my favorite Brazilian film.

Others have written about the plot and the story, but here I want to attest to the film's spot-on reflection of the culture of the time & place the story occurs.

I lived in a small town in Brazil in the late 1960s. The small town where I lived had a similar ambiance to 1940s' Salvador where this film is set, including the costumes, hairstyles, and makeup. Men often dressed in drag during Carnaval. The mourning scenes were typical of the time. The actions of the characters also seem appropriate to the time and place. Most Brazilians were Roman Catholic but many also believed in orixas, minor gods from African religions brought to Brazil by slaves and the supernatural happenings practitioners believed were caused by them. I once stayed in a small inn that was so similar to the one where Flor & Teodoro honeymooned, that it could have been the exact room i stayed in.

Some details are subtle and those unfamiliar with Brazil wouldn't catch them. For example, if I stopped by someone's home --no matter how long I stayed --when I chose to leave, my host would protest with, "It's early." In the film, I laughed out loud when I heard that exact line in the film.

Also the movie follows the Jorge Amado novel well. Amado's books are wordy (but beautifully so) so are much longer & would cover far too many hours for a film, so, of course, some scenes and details are missing.

Most of Amado's protagonists are women. Many of his characters are from the seedy side of life. And many of his books contain recipes. Dona Flor includes all of these typical Amado characteristics. I had read most of his books in English (the original Portuguese uses so many regional colloquialisms and slang that even native Brazilians have a hard time understanding some of them.)

The film isn't perfect, but for me who grew to love the country, the culture, and especially Brazilians, it was a joy to watch.

_____ Warning, there are some explicit sex scenes, if that bothers you.

If actress Regina Duarte is the "girlfriend of Brazil", Sonia Braga is and will always the eternal "Gabriela", who yesterday turns 70 years old. It shone in Brazilian cinema in "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" (1976), an absolute success in Brazil, remaining for three decades as the most watched Brazilian film in theaters (over ten million viewers), a film that elevated the Brazil to the first world of international cinema, after the country winning the Palme d'Or in Cannes (1962) with "Keeper of Promises - the given word", a film by Anselmo Duarte.

Others relevant national titles in her career includes "A Dama do Lotação" (1978, directed by Neville D"Almeida), "A Moreninha" (1970, directed by Glauco Mirko Laurelli), "O Casal" (1975, directed by Daniel Filho) and "Eu Te Amo" (1981, directed by Arnaldo Jabor). Before the TV series "Gabriela" (1975), Sonia had acted in other series at the Globo Network.

In the seventies, she appeared as a hippie ("Irmãos Coragem, 1970) and as a emotionally confused girl (Selva de Pedra, 1972) until the explosion with the title character of the television adaptation of the novel "Gabriela, Cravo e Canela", written by Jorge Amado, a landmark of Brazilian TV that becamed her in a television big star and revolutionized her image - it's important to say that!

"Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands", also an adaptation of a book written by Jorge Amado transformed Sonia in an international star - in the Baftas she was nominated as most outstanding newcomer and the film had a Hollywood version, " Kiss Me Goodbye" (1982, directed by Robert Mulligan) with Jeff Bridges, James Caan and Sally Field, who was at the height of her success with the Oscar received for "Norma Rae" (1979, directed by Martin Ritt). Later, Sally and Sonia would act together in the series "Brothers and Sisters" (2006-2011).

Courageous, in the middle of eighties, she left Globo TV and migrated to the USA after the success and Oscar nominations earned by "The Kiss of the Spider Woman" (1985, by Hector Babenco). In Hollywood she appeared in "The Milagro Beanfield War" (1988, directed by Robert Redford), "The Burning Season" (1994, directed by John Frankenheimer) and "Moon Over Parador" (1988, directed by Paul Mazursky), besides shining in six episodes of "Sex and the City" (1998 -2004), when she played a lesbian envolved with Miranda (Kim Cattrall). In the USA, recognized for her talent, she was nominated three times for the Golden Globe (once for "Kiss of the Spider Woman") and once for the Emmy for "The Burning Season".

In the dawn of the Sunday of the Carnival of 1943, in Salvador, the thirty-three years old Valdomiro 'Vadinho' Santos Guimarães (José Wilker) dies, with many internal organs not working well. The widow, the teacher of culinary art Dona Flor (Florípides) Guimarães (Sônia Braga), misses him and remember their lives together along seven years of marriage. Gambler, Bohemian, hard-drinker, "bon-vivant", but also good lover, Vadinho left Flor in the honeymoon, after the consumption of his obligations, to gamble in a casino and spend the rest of the night in a brothel. But he knew how to treat and love Flor, and in the end she made peace with him. After his death, Flor marries Dr. Teodoro Madureira (Mauro Mendonça), a good husband and hard- worker, with a great culture and player of oboe in a local orchestra. Teodoro gives a comfortable and very stable life to Flor, but without passion in his love, having boring sexual intercourse with her. After one year of marriage, Flor misses so much the sex life with Vadinho that she includes him in her sexual life. "Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos" is a delightful transposition to the cinema of the greatest best-seller of the Brazilian literature, having more than two millions readers. The naive and metaphoric story of a woman in the 40's, in the interior of Brazil, who has a repressed sexual life in her second marriage, and fantasizes thinking in the love of her former husband, is indeed a classic in Brazil. Sonia Braga in the beginning of her career, with her very Brazilian type, is magnificent in the role of Dona Flor, and José Wilker is the personification of the "Brazilian loafer" of the 40's, wearing white suit, asking for money to his friends, spending the money in gamble, women and booze, and having a woman to support him. This movie was awarded in the "Festival of Gramado (Brazil)" in 1977, and was nominated to the Golden Globe of 1979 in the category Best Foreigner Movie. This movie was recently released on DVD in Brazil. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos"

The hardworking "Flor" (Sonia Braga) marries the dashing Klaus Kinski lookalike "Vadinho" (José Wilker) but quickly discovers that he is a bit of a philanderer and a complete waste of space. Then, as if by magic, he dies and is conveniently buried with nose blockers so he can't smell his own rotting corpse in the coffin in the ground! That's an early sign of what's to come in this dark and quite entertaining romantic comedy that has shades of "Blithe Spirit" to it. That's because once he has started to push up the daisies, she marries the kindly and decent pharmacy owner "Teodoro" (Mauro Mendonça) who promises to be faithful to her and her alone. The snag with that particular arrangement is that quite rapidly she realises that though solid and reliable, his sexual prowess is less than energetic. Yep, after a while she starts to miss her absent "Vadhino". Well, guess what. He must have been watching her from the netherworld as he almost immediately he appears, usually stark naked, ready to resume his husbandly duties. Quite literally an horny little devil on her shoulder! He turns up at all the wrong times, causes no end of mischief and in the end, poor old "Flor" doesn't really know which way to turn as her husband thinks she's gradually losing the plot and her scheming apparition is enjoying every minute of it! It's maybe not a film for the more politically correct amongst us, as the wandering hands of "Vadhino" know few bounds, but once we appreciate that he is really just the latest in a long line of local Lotharios who is shallow and thoughtless, yes, but ultimately means no-one any harm then we can settle down to enjoy a series of faintly ridiculous scenarios set in a small town community where chauvinism is as much the currency as the Cruzeiro. There's a suitably jolly score to accompany these antics and a clear message about the grass not always being greener - especially if you are slowly decomposing underneath it. It's maybe a little long and it does recycle itself in the middle, but it is still, an enjoyable romp through a Brazilian way of life that lives by the seat of it's pants.