[Marxism] The Other Side of the Street

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Marcos Bernstein wrote the screenplay for Walter Salles's excellent road
movie "Central Station." (Salles also directed the much acclaimed
"Motorcycle Diaries," another road movie!) Bernstein has now made his own
debut as director in the soon-to-be-released "The Other Side of the Street"
(O Outra Lado Da Rua), which stars 75 year old Fernanda Montenegro, who
also starred in "Central Station."

Montenegro plays Regina, a lonely, retired, middle-class woman living in
the beachfront Copacabana neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. With sterile
looking high-rises and a preponderantly elderly population, this
neighborhood bears a striking resemblance to Miami Beach.

Regina has nothing much to keep her going except occasional visits by her
grandson (she is alienated from his father and her ex-husband for reasons
that are never spelled out in this often elliptical film), walking her dog
who is as old as her in dog years, and serving as a police auxiliary. Like
other retired folks in the neighborhood, she keeps an eye out for drug
dealers and muggers in her neighborhood. Her "undercover" name is Snow White.

Either out of boredom or in keeping with her unpaid job as a snoop, she
trains her binoculars on the windows of the high-rise across the street
(hence the title of the film) after waking up in the middle of the night.
While scanning through the windows in a fashion somewhat after
channel-surfing on television, she fixes on what appears to be a murder.
After an elderly man injects his wife with a hypodermic needle, she dies in
her bed. She then calls her contact at the police department, who comes to
investigate. Since the elderly man is Camargo (played by Raul Cortez, a
celebrated Brazilian actor), a highly-placed judge, and since the death
appears to be from illness (indeed, the woman--his wife--was in the final
throes of cancer), the cops decide that the investigation will go no
further. This does not satisfy Regina who begins her own investigation and
begins trailing the perpetrator around the Copacabana neighborhood.

Although this sounds suspiciously like a Brazilian version of Alfred
Hitchcock's "Rear Window," the film goes off in an entirely different
direction not long after Regina is confronted by her nemesis in a local
restaurant. Camargo wants to know why he keeps running into her, wherever
he goes. Although Regina feels menaced by him, she agrees to meet him on
the beach the next day to talk some more. At this point the film goes off
in a completely unexpected direction as Camargo expresses amorous feelings
toward her. From their first meeting in the restaurant and until they
finally consummate their relationship, it is never totally clear what he is
really up to. Does he have ulterior motives? Will he kill her in an
unguarded moment? We are also not sure whether the death of his wife, which
he finally admits his role in, is a mercy killing requested by her or his
own desperate act intended to relieve him from a burdensome marriage.

In other words, the lack of clarity and resolution is exactly what one
encounters in real life but so infrequently in the cinema, especially
Hollywood cinema which seeks to wrap denouements up in a tidy package with
a red-ribbon.

"The Other Side of the Street" is a highly nuanced, superbly acted
character study that defies conventional expectations. It is also a
quintessentially Brazilian film that is also quintessentially universal. As
a study of old age and loneliness, two decidedly unmarketable subjects, it
is peerless.

The film opens at the Quad Cinema in NYC on February 25. Highly recommended.

--

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