Arts :: Movies And Tv
The lives of mothers by Brian Jewell
contributing writerThursday Mar 13, 2008 Kitchen sink drama, Brazilian style, in Alice’s House
Imagine a soap opera without the sudsy melodrama and you’ve got Alice’s House, the feature film debut from out Brazilian filmmaker Chico Teixeira. Teixeira’s background in documentaries is evident in this slightly gritty, slightly wan look at the modern Brazilian family; he gets so close to his characters and their messy lives that it’s like spying on your own neighbors, complete with workaday tedium to go with the thrill of voyeurism. But the accumulation of details and the excellent performances exert a strong pull.
The film introduces us to an unremarkable family that’s trying to be middle class. Their apartment is tidy and cozy, but a bit shabby and much too small. The three sons - slobby slacker Lucas, intense Edinho, and gentle Junior, who’s still in school - share a cramped bedroom. Their parents, Lindomar and Alice, share a bed but don’t share much intimacy. And Alice’s mother Dona Jacira has her own room, but she’s mostly seen bustling about the common rooms, doing housework. This movie is as much about space as plot. In fact, it begins with a series of still lives of the apartment, a moment of silence that underscores how crowded the place is and the tension between intimacy and individuality in these tight quarters.
Alice and Lindomar are the only ones in the family holding down jobs, and Alice seems to be the primary breadwinner in the family. Neither she nor Dona Jacira gets any respect or gratitude for keeping the household running smoothly. Nevertheless Alice seems placid, content; but one day while riding the bus to the salon where she works as a manicurist, a man rubs his crotch against her. Surprised and perhaps amused, Alice offers no protest. Bored with her life, she is ready for an adventure. When an old boyfriend comes into the salon, Alice ponders having an affair and when she discovers that Lindomar has been cheating on her, she evens the score. Feeling alive and appreciated for the first time in who knows how many years, Alice is intoxicated, carried away with fantasies of leaving her husband for her lover, who’s also married. Meanwhile, long simmering tensions between Lindomar and Dona Jacira, and among the three boys, begin to boil over.
But the plot mechanics take a backseat to the emotional mechanics here, and what’s fascinating is the way each character manages to both know and not know each other’s business. Dona Jacira, in particular, seems to see everything that happens in the household, but out of diplomacy, cowardice or disinterest, she doesn’t make a peep about Lindomar’s womanizing or Lucas’s hustling. Even more potent than the mutual deceptions and the tacit agreements not to talk about certain subjects, are the self-deceptions Teixeira reveals, both in the plot and in the film’s many quietly revealing moments. Lucas, for instance, seems fiercely straight identified; yet besides turning tricks with men, he whispers to Junior at night while holding hands, and is jealous whenever Alice babies the boy. And Alice seems to think extra-marital affairs are only wrong if you get caught. She self-righteously berates one of Lindomar’s girlfriends, but shows more awkwardness and irritation than guilt when she has to chat with her own lover’s wife. Even the movie’s title suggests some of Alice’s sad pretensions. She’s so taken for granted in her own home that she’s barely there at all; and in fact it’s her mother who owns the apartment.
This slow tallying of the little ways people deceive and wound each other is a little mournful but never maudlin, suffused with a sort of emotional pragmatism. Stuff happens and the kitchen needs to be swept every day. That’s just life. But glimmers of hope and warmth pop out from Carla Ribas, who makes an impressive debut as Alice. Her marvelously transparent performance sometimes recalls her earthy predecessors like Giulietta Masina and Carmen Maura. But her appeal comes not from being a slightly idealized idea of a "real" woman. Instead of Masina’s luminance or Maura’s indomitableness, Ribas offers a slightly tired, tentatively hopeful naturalism that fascinates with its very familiarity.
Alice’s House opens Friday.
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