Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands

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 my 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 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.

When I first saw it, it was one of the most sexiest movies I had ever seen. Sonia Braga back in the late seventies was a beautiful woman and now as a 57 year old she still has that look. After seeing the movie I wanted to see more of Brazil, so much I went to Rio. I was not disappointed. From very rich ex-patriot Germans to super poor mixed race Brazilians, it was an eye opener. Brazilian women were so sexy in dress and manner but don't let the eye candy fool you. There character was top rate. As one Brazilian woman put it, "We dress like this because we celebrate life and sex, but to get these pants off a wedding ring is the key."

Talking about prodigy filmmakers, Xavier Dolan might feel threatened, at the age of 21, Brazilian director Bruno Barreto's third feature DONA FLOR AND HER TWO HUSBANDS (adapted from Jorge Amado's namesake novel), became the most successful film in Brazilian history, a record it would retain for about 35 years, and it launched its star Sonia Braga onto international stardom, who would reach the apogee in her iconic turn in KISS OF THE SPIDER MAN (1985, 9/10) as the embodiment of the titular spider woman.

Death precipitately befalls during the exotic festivity of a cluster of people dancing and courting a mulatto in a Brazilian town, and the deceased is Vadinho (Wilker), a young man in his early thirties, and the causes of his death are multiple. He is survived by his wife Dona Flora (Braga), and she starts to recollect their seven-year marriage and it turns out Vadinho is a complete good-for-nothing except his amorous sexual desire. He is a chronic gambler, an inherent womaniser, a boozer and whore-monger with a tendency for domestic violence. And Dona is a sultry beauty, but also a religious wife, she puts up with him in spite of all the suffering and abuse, since occasionally she can find the ephemeral satisfaction in their torrid love-making. But in the eyes of others, like Dona's mother and her close friends, who keep grousing about why she is so submissive towards Vadinho's tyranny, their marriage is a total mismatch judging by the face value.

When Vadinho is out of the picture, everyone is hoping for a new bright future for Dona, including herself, she is tormented by his sudden death, but is also looking forward to commencing a brand new chapter of her life. So she marries to a second husband, a middle-age pharmacist Teodoro (Mendonça), the exact opposite of Vadinho, a respectful man with a prospective future, but pedantic and boring, and worst of all, the sex is dreadful, comically marked out by Barreto in their wedding consummation with droll earnestness.

Commendably, the film focuses on a woman's conundrum between two polarised types of men, edifies with the motto "happiness does not equal romance" and then establishes Dona as a token of woman's sexual liberation by creating an imaginary ménage-a-trois situation with no rationale behind it. Barreto affirmatively betrays his young age through mischievousness of twisting the irony of fate and whimsies in engineering its saucy sex scenes with inordinate indulgence. Especially Wilker is not such a hotrod gaging by today's standard, watching him flaunt his flabby body in the buff and ca-noodle Braga again and again only solidifies one thing: she deserves someone much better, and the exploitation of her sex appeal out-paces the requirement for a committed performance, which she invests profoundly in the character development.

As far as the film is concerned, although sometimes verbosely executed, but who can resist its fetching charm of a strange land with all its whistles and bells function in full mode, plus a hindsight of Barreto's young age can only attribute more to his precocious expertise, a creditable achievement indeed.

One of Bruno Barreto's earliest works, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is a comical story about human desires and the need for balance. This movie is for everyone who ever wanted to mix and match the qualities of failed lovers into the perfect partner. You will laugh and see yourself in Dona Flor's struggles.

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".