Cupid Estranho Cupid
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Cupid Estranho Cupid |
| Country of production | Brazil |
| original language | Portuguese |
| Publishing year | 1982 |
| length | 124 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Walter Hugo Khouri |
| script | Walter Hugo Khouri |
| production | Anibal Massaini Neto |
| music | Rogerio Duprat |
| camera | Antonio Meliande |
| cut | Eder Mazzini |
| occupation | |
| |
Amor Estranho Amor (English title Love Strange Love ) is a Brazilian feature film directed by Walter Hugo Khouri . The erotic coming-of-age drama was released in 1982.
action
São Paulo , approx. 1980: Hugo, in his mid-fifties, addressed as "Excellency" and thus apparently a political authority, visits the magnificent villa that he has inherited and wants to transfer to a cultural organization. Unforgettable memories of his youth that pass by as flashbacks connect him to the building. - In the 1930s Hugo's mother Anna is the lover of the politician Dr. Osmar, who owns the villa. The house is home to a posh brothel where the most influential men in the country frequent. As the right hand man of the resolute brothel boss Laura, Anna takes care of organizational matters. Shortly before the political changes in Brazil in 1937, the twelve-year-old Hugo is sent by his grandmother, with whom he lives, to his mother, whom he hardly knows. He secretly observes the lascivious goings-on in the common room and also the sexual acts in the rooms, whereby he discovers his own awakening sex drive. Hugo overhears a conversation between his mother and Dr. Osmar and learns that this is his father. For the women of the establishment, the boy is a welcome flirtation object, which Anna eyed suspiciously. The prostitute Olga undresses in front of Hugo and tries to seduce him, but is disturbed and can hide undetected. During the night, Hugo dreams of group sex with all the prostitutes in the house and pleasures himself. Especially the pretty and very young Tamara, whom Dr. Osmar to the politician Dr. Benicio makes a “gift” arouses Hugo's interest. When Anna finally caught Hugo naked in bed with Tamara, where they were apparently about to have sexual intercourse, a scandal ensued. Anna attacks Tamara aggressively and sends Hugo back to her grandmother. Weeping, he asks his mother to be allowed to stay with her. The first comforting embrace turns into an incestuous sexual encounter between mother and son. Meanwhile, news of the coup d'état by President Getúlio Vargas has arrived, and Osmar is fleeing into voluntary exile. The new rulers feel the ownership of Dr. Osmar at the house and guarantee the continued existence of the brothel as a discreet place of entertainment for important government guests, Hugo has to go back to his grandmother. - Fade into the present: With the arrival of a delegation of the future owners, Hugo finds his way back from his memories to the present. He tells the men of the organization that he himself only spent a few days of his life in the villa while his mother lived there.
background
1979 Walter Hugo Khouri presented the planned film project for the distribution company Embrafilme. The shooting was in 1982 in São Paulo, where the premiere also took place in November 1982. The film was rated 18+ in Brazil. Khouri cast most of the essential roles with well-known Brazilian actors. Xuxa Meneghel , then known as a photo model , had her first important film appearance in Amor Estranho Amor . For the role of the young Hugo, the director chose twelve-year-old Marcelo Ribeiro, who had already appeared as a supporting actor in Khouri's film Eros, O Deus do Amor the previous year . In addition to Brazil, Amor Estranho Amor was also shown in theaters in Argentina, the USA and Greece, but not in German-speaking countries.
Reception and aftermath
Vera Fischer received the Air France Film Award and the Festival de Brasília do Cinema Brasileiro award for best actress in a 1982 film for her role as "Anna" . 1985 saw a reviewer of the Los Angeles Times in Love Strange Love parallels to two films by Louis Malle , namely atrial fibrillation (because of the mother-son incest) and Pretty Baby (due to the plot of a child in the brothel), recognized Walter Hugo Khouri compared to Malle, however, less caution and sensitivity when dealing with potentially explosive topics. Also in 1985 an American label released a VHS video in English synchronization.
After Xuxa Meneghel became the presenter of a successful children's show on Brazilian television in 1986, she acquired the performance and publication rights for the film for Latin America. In doing so, she wanted to prevent further spread of the soft sex scenes in which she is seen as a 19-year-old with a twelve-year-old boy. According to an interview with Hugo actor Marcelo Ribeiro in the Folha de S. Paulo in 2007, the film was not denounced in the first year after its release because of the revealing erotic depictions with a minor; moral criticism in this regard was only made loud in 1983 after his appearance in the program with TV presenter Hebe Camargo . The film was not re-released for twenty years until a DVD was released in the US in 2005, which contained a version 23 minutes longer (120 minutes) than the 1985 video. According to the Cinemateca Brasileira, the original cut version is 124 minutes. In 2011, the producer Anibal Massaini Neto said in the Brazilian press that Xuxa Meneghel had stopped her license payments - the talk was of 100,000 reais per year - so that the production company considers the contract regarding the publication ban in Brazil to be over.
For the young actor Marcelo Ribeiro, this role in a movie meant the end of the acting: commitments for films such as Perfume de Gardênia [1992] and Künstlerhaus (Casa dos Artistas) of the renowned Brazilian broadcaster SBT were withdrawn again.
“In this first film for me, I didn't know how to act. They stuck tape "there" because I couldn't control myself. [...] After Xuxa had stopped the further distribution of the film, it became tight for me, because people said that films with me could have negative effects. "
Image carrier
- Love Strange Love. Vestron Video, Stamford CT 1985 (VHS tape, 97 minutes)
- Love Strange Love. JEF Films International, Osterville MA 2005 (DVD, 120 minutes)
Web links
- Love Strange Love in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Data sheet 00623 of the Cinemateca Brasileira , accessed on July 18, 2011.
- ↑ a b data sheet 002186 of the Cinemateca Brasileira ( memento of March 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on July 18, 2011.
- ↑ Kevin Thomas: "Love": Sensitive and Absorbing , in: Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1985, accessed July 18, 2011.
- ↑ Débora Bergamasco: Após 25 anos, "menino" que fez movies erótico com Xuxa prepara livro; leia entrevista , in: Folha de S. Paulo, July 17, 2007, accessed July 18, 2011.
- ↑ movies erótico volta a assombrar Xuxa on: R7 Entretenimento from March 16, 2011 accessed 18 July 2011th
- ↑ Débora Bergamasco: Após 25 anos, "menino" que fez movies erótico com Xuxa prepara livro; leia entrevista , in: Folha de S. Paulo, July 17, 2007, accessed July 18, 2011.