Photo: Karim Aïnouz's Love For Sale
Loneliness coalesces into desperation in Karim Aïnouz's tender new film, which begins and ends on the desert road outside a small Brazilian town where opportunity appears as unknowable as snowfall. Hermila comes to visit her aunt and grandmother with her young child, and after it becomes clear that her husband may have abandoned them, she embraces the affections of a former paramour while entertaining the possibility of prostitution. Hermila's crisis isn't milked for cheap pathos, but while she may come to her decision as calmly as the hammocks that swing beneath the silhouette of trees that dot the neighborhood, there is still sadness to the way her face sinks as she calls herself Suely for the first time and sells one of her lottery tickets to a man, declaring that the prize is no longer a bottle of whiskey but "a night in paradise." Ed Gonzalez
Loneliness coalesces into desperation in Karim Aïnouz's tender new film, which begins and ends on the desert road outside a small Brazilian town where opportunity appears as unknowable as snowfall. Hermila comes to visit her aunt and grandmother with her young child, and after it becomes clear that her husband may have abandoned them, she embraces the affections of a former paramour while entertaining the possibility of prostitution. Hermila's crisis isn't milked for cheap pathos, but while she may come to her decision as calmly as the hammocks that swing beneath the silhouette of trees that dot the neighborhood, there is still sadness to the way her face sinks as she calls herself Suely for the first time and sells one of her lottery tickets to a man, declaring that the prize is no longer a bottle of whiskey but "a night in paradise." Ed Gonzalez
