Marlene De Sousa

Betty, a popular actress from ‘novelas’ (Brazilian soaps), is in the slums of Sao Paolo looking for her twin sister Marlene, with whom she lost contact at an early age. Marlene is a prostitute and calls herself Kelly. Filippo, an Italian in Brazil for the first time, meets several women, including the two sisters Joana and Cristina and then also Marlene/Kelly. He has left the pregnant Giulia behind in Italy, but she continues to write him letters. In the meantime, a nameless tramp poses questions to the world beyond the horizon on the beach in Rio.Marlene De Sousa is an homage to Betty Faria, a Brazilian film and theatre actress and soap star, and to Brazil as a whole, the country of a thousand faces. De Bernardi allows his actors to integrate naturally into the surroundings he chose for them and only seems to give them some unemphatic acting indications, as a result of which the viewer gets a very authentic picture of – in this case – Sao Paolo, Rio, Paris and Piemonte. The script and mise-en-scène were partially improvised. Bernardi avoids the pitfall of an all-too-everyday recording of reality by the poetical use of language, the charismatic présence of the actors (especially Betty Faria, but also De Bernardi’s daughter Giulietta and Maria de Medeiros), a sensitive ear for music and a sharp psychological insight. (EH)