"Strange Encounter" tells the story of Júlia, a young woman (Andrea Bayard) who bumps into nice man Marcos (Mário Sérgio) after running away from
her tyrannical husband (Luigi Picchi) and his repetitive and menacing obsessions. Marcos rescues her and takes her to his lover's house (Lola Brah), the only place they could be safe except for the presence of the nosy caretaker (Sérgio Hingst). The ultimate goal for Marcos is a double plan of hiding the woman
from all of those people.
Walter Hugo Khouri's second film (and first available) is a classy film-noir that explores the dynamics of relationships between men and
women, a recurring theme in his works. The difference of this film with the others he end up doing is that he leaves the sexuality out (for obvious
reasons) and really focuses on potential new lovers in the strange encounter of two different lovers. It's very tame, and the key element of
attraction is the danger involved in keeping things a secret, one person helping the other and loves blossoms from there.
While the story seems a cliche, there are a couple of twists in it that prevents from being one. The whole terror Júlia feels from her
husband, as she later recalls in a series of flashbacks, isn't necessarily physical violence, it's more like a pyschologial terror while living
with a dominating man with strange habits that he feels the need to address, revolving around a trauma in his life where he lost a leg. You read
right, he has a prosthetic leg. And with the great nuances and sinister elements inspired by Hitchcock's "Rebecca", the film works because of
the whole fright that man causes on his young wife since she feels completely abandoned, hopeless and constantly imagining she'll be killed by him. And he could do that.
A very enjoyable film with plenty of great surprises, a well-built suspense and some nice small romance between the main couple. The small objection I
have is the whole presentation about the caretaker and how he deals with Mário throughout the film. Mário isn't the boss but he's engaged with the boss
and she likes him yet the worker acts in a challenging manner as if he's superior to the guy he should be serving with quality. He's opposite to Mário
from the get-go, and that makes such character predictable to future events. It's a script problem, not an actor's one.
I wasn't expecting much from "Strange Encounter" but I've got plenty with it, and the surprise at the ending also made a big difference. You'll
be thinking about this film afterwards. 8/10.
