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Rating: And there's the cheeky epitaph by the poet friend Clodoaldo at Vadinho's funeral that makes for an unrepentant snapshot of a multitasking life of vice marked by a gamble in the dark: "Never will another come so friendly with the stars, dice, and whores. The gamblers and the black women of Bahia are in mourning. A minute of silence at all the roulettes, flags at half-mast on the roofs of our brothels, a desperate sob of shocked asses." OF SHOCKED ASSES!, can you believe it?!?
And the overwhelming sensuality of Sônia Braga who might seem even plain at first glance, but if she gives you such a hell of a time, what can you say? Not so much out of a desire to shag her, but the desire to copulate to impregnate her.
And candid Flor discovers through the frictions of her whoremonger and chronic gambler husband that the zone of pleasure in a woman is very close to that of pain and therefore welcome, come the big shots (sons of bitches...) who heat up torrid orgasms in pacts of casino getaways, returns in underwear after losing everything, endless betrayals, and varied whoredom.
And when do you notice it? When Vadinho kicks the bucket in the middle of yet another of his excesses during the Bahia carnival: congested liver, seized kidneys, failing heart, the lungs then... it's the death report. And the widow, after mourning, accepts the courtship of the pharmacist Teodoro thus his marriage proposal.
But the surprise of realizing the staticity of the sexual prowess of the new "good" husband triggers an unconscious but desired recall of the spirit of the first husband who appears astrally always naked and wants to satisfy shamelessly, as he did in life, the "heat" of his wife. A complementary psyche? Feminine delusions? A whim of those green-gold voodoo that we in the hemisphere above the equator cannot understand? A will that goes beyond the visible?
What is it that makes that "piece of shit" so dear able to return here? The fact is he returns, and only Donna Flor sees and "feels" him, only her. Who said that women must be taken, not understood? After a bit of back and forth in the ménage à trois, overwhelmed by guilt, to avoid capitulating sexually to the "ghost's" advances, Flor seeks help from a candomblé ritual to be liberated from the entity...
The end of the film as they exit the mass, to the notes of O que será, is masterful and transports us to those infinite ways of the Lord where everything is possible and moves us with its compassion in wanting to stop, even if only in fantasy (but who knows), the cycle of life and death.
And I was there in '99 in Salvador de Bahia, I went up and down that slope that leads to the main square with those colorful houses... I was working as a cameraman and sound engineer for a carioca footage assignment and after Rio, we arrived Monday in Bahia and in the evening, we went out to see the famous local dance movement, we noted there weren't many people around, let's say there was practically no one.
The next day, between capoeiras and caipirinhas, we understood that Monday was the day of rest from a week of continuous festivities that from Tuesday to Sunday we experienced working for the shoots in the chaos: an oceanic crowd poured into the streets, bars, on the beach, rhythmically moving to the music oblivious to the future evident in an equatorial Saturnalia that contemplated no tomorrow.
And I saw Vadinho, and Donna Flor in that merry-go-round, in that endless carnival.
“O que será que será...
o que não tem certeza, nem nunca terá
o que não tem conserto, nem nunca terá o que não tem tamanho..."
What saudade guys...
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