a movie for grown ups, please
I can't stand to find comments displayed on the main film page like "uhhh, like, this movie totally suxxxxxx". And no further explanation is necessary.
I found the movie deeply disturbing. Sofia is like a clock bomb. The twisted home, the twisted aunt, the masturbation references. The scene at the park, I thought she was going to push the baby or something, she was really about to do something as we could see.
The cuts are so clever and they let you imagine a lot. You have to construct the story in a way it's not commonly seen in movies - you really have to make an effort to connect the time passages. And you can do it. We don't have to receive the whole message explained, we can digest the movie this way, too.
*** SPOILERS ***
The vanishments are also puzzling. The second woman simply vanishes and a year is past. Carmen, as well, after the hijack she simply vanishes. And when he returns to Sofia's house, I was just feeling sick. I couldn't stand her presence on the screen, after all the degeneration of Gael's character.
Not to mention the photographs. Rímini (a short for reminiscence, perhaps) simply refuses to deal with that "corpse" composed by the pictures, and there are consequences - Sofia gets obsessed as someone living by the side of a dead body for years.
The picture of Lucio (which did not appear naked before) also brings the feeling that she was not seeking for a son of Rimini, but for Rimini, naked, on her bedroom, on the kid. That's another disturbing point.
By far, this is the most disturbing and tense psychologial thriller/drama I've seen in years. It's like a Polanski film, but with a less cruel view and more of a morbid/pathological illustration of the a human being obsession with another one. I'd rate it 9 out of 10. Babenco really got this right.