Eu Tu Eles

"Eu Tu Eles" tells the story of Regina Case. A headstrong peasant woman in dusty rural Brasil who needs the support of 3 men to fulfill the traditional role of a husband. Each of the men help her attain different areas of fulfillment - a economic provider, a soulmate, and a lustful sexual partner.

Its a simple story and you do feel that the movie drags on much more than necessary as it shows how people are mutually dependant. The soundtrack of the movie is excellent, and I think what makes it work is the background - the pallete of the story set in rural Brasil. Directory Andrucha Waddington and cinematographer Brendo Silveira used prominent reds, browns, and ochres, fading into deep shadows to give a dusky, lusty beauty to the landscape. Its a very raw beauty - the clouds, the trees are prominent, and stagnant which go on to enhance the location of the story and the lives of its main protagonists.

This is a beautifully directed and photographed tale of a Brazilian countrywoman who, in a reversal of the traditional sexual roles, maintains relationships, and has babies, with several men. In Hollywood this plotline might have resulted in a sleazy drama or zany farce, but director Andrucha Waddington has wisely chosen to follow a realist path, and create a warm, human comedy, about believable characters, set in simple interiors and the arid landscape of interior Bahia.

Another difference from a hypothetical Hollywood version is that the characters largely lack conventional glamour. Regina Casé, who plays the heroine, Darlene, is distinctly homely; her legal husband who ignores her while she gets on with managing his smallholding and cutting sugar cane, and his more affectionate cousin whom she takes as a lover, are both older men. Only Ciro (Luis Carlos Vasconcelos), the young man she later turns to, has obvious physical attraction.

On occasion the realism turns a little magical, under the influence of the surrealistic wide, open vistas and long, empty roads, but Waddington plays down any metaphysical elements. Nor is the movie a social tract, though Regina - knowingly or unknowingly - is asserting her right to live her own life and seek happiness where she can, just like consciously feminist women in the wider world. In the tradition of humanist films, there is an open ending, which may or may not be happy - again, unlike Hollywood.

This film provides a new meditation on female attractiveness, beauty, and sexuality. It provides new situations, and new reactions to situations. It provides new meditations on happiness, and on the roads to happiness. There are even little, possibly unintended, meditations on the slavery inherent in the cash economy. I'll watch this film at least a few more times, and get something new out of it every time.

One of the delights of watching foreign films is that distance, like time, provides a filtering effect. Only the very best of the foreign cinema makes its way to our shores. Therefore, it is not surprising that the cinematography, the score, the acting are all first class. But even by that elevated standard this film is special.

On the face of it, the simple plot of the film would not seem enough to sustain the audience's interest. Darlene, an imposing young woman with an illegitimate child, returns to her home in the outback of the Bahia region of Brazil. There she marries an older man, has his child, then takes up with two other men and has children with them as well, all of them living together on the edge of poverty. The powerful acting, a hauntingly beautiful visual style, a landscape both harsh and lovely all make this a cinematic treasure in which one's attention never flags for a moment. It is a film which continues to resonate weeks after seeing it. I look forward to seeing it again and again.

First of all, let me say I'm not into movies that depict the suffering of poor people, but this is NOT one of them. It does show the hard life of people living on the edge of Brazil's Northeastern desert, but it is not your regular social protest stuff, and I think it might help these people even better BECAUSE of it.

I'm not against using cinema to protest against social structures, but sometimes the movies can make you see the poor as sub-human. This is not the case here: they have a pretty hard life, indeed, but the director shows us also the beauty of even the arid hinterland where they live. And not only they feel love, like any of us spectators: in this case, they happen to be able to work out a relationship that is unusual for us "urban people" to see, in such a relatively peaceful way.It is a true story, and they can actually teach us that love is everywhere, and in many shapes for us to choose.