There's a big question here: what audience was "Dom" made for? What's the point of "modernizing" one of the greatest novels by the all-time best Brazilian writer, bastardizing it beyond recognition with the lame pretext of "making it easy for the ordinary public", while slyly throwing in soft-core erotica to "spice it up"? Well, that's exactly what "Dom" does do Machado de Assis' masterpiece "Dom Casmurro" (published in 1900), with abhorrent, revolting consequences. When you watch the umpteenth wet kiss between Marcos Palmeira (who gets to show his behind as well) and Maria Fernanda Cândido (who doesn't), when you hear the dialog "translated" to everyday babbling, you know that doing justice to Machado's book was completely alien to the film's agenda.
The film rips off ONE of the themes of the novel -- Bento's irrational jealousy of his wife Capitu (renamed Ana in the film), who may or may not be unfaithful to him -- achieving the incredible feat of making it look like a TV soap opera (which is the filmmakers' obvious aesthetic paradigm). "Dom" LOOKS like soap opera (what about that flat lighting and awful set decoration!!); it SOUNDS like soap opera (the dialog is so common it hurts); it's PERFORMED like soap opera (with that sort of "phony naturalism" which is, of course, a contradiction in terms); it's DIRECTED like soap opera (it's all close-ups and talk talk talk, no action, no backdrops, everything's flat and lifeless); and it's aimed at the VERY SAME audience who watch soap operas -- who, in this case, wisely sensed the smell of turkey and stayed home, making the film a box-office flop.
Embarrassing all the way, "Dom" is the kind of film that raises a lot of other mysterious questions: If the idea was to bowdlerize the novel and make it look like TV, WHY make a film out of it? Why not make a TV series or a soap opera? HOW did they manage to raise money for this film? Mysteries, mysteries...The only comforting news is to know that it flunked, hopefully warning future directors/producers of this kind of transvestite junk to think twice before perpetrating literary rapes like this.
Do yourself a big favor and skip this one; if you wan't to see a reasonable adaptation of Machado de Assis (who's never been very lucky with movies based on his oeuvre), watch André Klotzel's flawed but imaginative "Memórias Póstumas" (2001) or Júlio Bressane's "unfaithful" but very creative "Brás Cubas" (1985). Or, much better still, read "Dom Casmurro" and marvel at Machado's wit, irony, style and timeless artistry.
