A hard and courageous film by a young female director who shows the plain truth of the entanglement of sex and violence in a sick relationship between a man and a woman. The protagonist is the young woman Dalva. She still lives with her frustrated bitter mother, but not for long if she has anything to say about it. She has won a prize in a hairdressing contest; she is allowed to take part in a hairdressing workshop in Miami. For a poor woman in Sao Paulo that is something like a journey to paradise. Dalva packs her suitcase, but she hasn’t had the courage to tell her mother about her departure. Then the doorbell rings and Dalva embarks on a one-way trip to hell. In front of her is her ex-fiancé Victor, an aggressive unemployed steel worker with the body of a Chippendale. In a classic ‘huit clos’ lasting an hour and a half, a perverted process of attraction and repulsion starts, of eroticism and aggression, of caressing and rape and of murder and comfort. The mother comes home and is briefly a hindrance in the bizarre battle between Victor and Dalva, but she is soon cold-bloodedly slaughtered by Victor.Tata Amaral spent a long time searching for an actress who was willing and able to give herself entirely. She found her in the impressive and sensual Aleyona Cavalli. She strived for the utmost realism, giving an impression of real time, especially in the long shots of love-making and fights, filmed from the shoulder. A revealing film about the war between the sexes. (GjZ)
