As a handheld camera busily moves through the apartment, we notice how little interaction there is. Grandma goes about her chores as if she were invisible - none of the men acknowledge her presence. They just expect to have clean clothes to grab in the morning and food waiting for them on the table. Alice commands little more attention as she gets ready to go to work as a manicurist. This is the world of Alice's House, a new film from Brazil.
Directed by documentary filmmaker Chico Teixeira, Alice's House serves up drama of a very human scale. Teixeira approaches Alice as if she were the subject of a documentary portrait. He brings his camera into her home and quietly records the details of her daily life. The result is a carefully observed film about one woman's growing dissatisfaction.
It may be Alice's house but it's also a house of men. When the men aren't fighting, they're lounging around the house making a mess and expecting someone else to pick up after them. These are men who think nothing of urinating all over the toilet seat because they're too lazy to lift it up. Plus, the father thinks little of striking up an affair with an underage girl. This has been Alice's life for nearly twenty years but then something happens.
Alice (Carla Ribas) blossoms when Nilson (Luciano_Quirino) enters her life. (FiGa Films)
CLIP: "Alice and Nilson."
One day an old flame enters the salon where Alice works. The man, Nilson, is now married to one of Alice's clients. He's apparently quite well off and he still shows interest in Alice. The attention he gives her makes Alice blossom. It also makes her reconsider her life.
Alice's transformation is the focus of the film. She's done what she felt was expected of her: she's gotten married, had children, and works a steady job. But she's becomes aware of constant small abuses from her husband and sons, and the lack of real warmth or affection in her family. The only connection she has is with her mother.
Alice reaches a breaking point when she discovers that her husband's young lover is the neighbor girl who's been seeking her advice. Alice seems able to take the daily humiliations and betrayals from the men in her life but when a girl that she's treated like a daughter deceives her, she simply explodes.
CLIP: "Alice yells at girl."
Alice (Carla Ribas) and her mother (Berta_Zemel) in Alice's House.(FiGa Films)
Carla Ribas' performance anchors the film. Her Alice doesn't get to bust out like Thelma and Louise or experience a feminist rebirth like Jill Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman. Instead, her journey is closer to that of another Alice, the one played by Ellen Burstyn in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Both these Alices inhabit a real world where life doesn't change overnight and attempts to break free of suffocating routines can be difficult and uncertain.
Ribas has crucial scenes without dialogue and does a splendid job of conveying a woman re-evaluating her life. At one point she calls her lover Nilson and gets his wife on the phone by mistake.
CLIP: "Wife yelling."
In her frozen silence Ribas conveys a rapid succession of emotions. The wife's voice is a harsh reminder that Nilson is not a free man. But the woman's anger reminds her of the pain she felt when she discovered her husband's affair. Yet Ribas also conveys Alice's selfish desire for her own happiness. All these emotions come through in a few moments as Alice walks away from the pay phone.
The working class, female perspective of Alice's House provides a nice complement to City of Men, another Brazilian film currently in theaters that shows life from through the eyes of young men in Brazil's slums. The two film provide a very different windows into contemporary Brazilian life.
Companion viewing: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, An Unmarried Woman, A Brief Vacation, Bread and Tulips, Thelma and Louise
