Search - Love for Sale on DVD

Moody and Unusual

Amos Lassen | Little Rock, Arkansas | 08/04/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Love for Sale" ( "O Ceu de Suely")

Moody and Unusual

Amos Lassen

"Love for Sale" follows Hermila, a strong willed woman who leaves Sao Paolo with her infant son to return to her home town of Igatu in central Brazil. Igatu is a poor village and life there is simple and uneventful. Hermila moves into her grandmother's house where her young aunt also lives. We soon learn that Hermila is waiting for Mateus, her companion to join her. Her baby's constant crying has begun to annoy her and she sometimes says that she wishes she could leave him somewhere in the woods. She is not a mother who doesn't care--she young (only 21) and eager and self-centered. She just wants to have fun.
Life in Igatu is boring and Hermila begins to hang out with Georgina, a young prostitute and the two women enjoy dancing, drinking, flirting and just having fun. When she meets Joao, they have casual sex and she regards it as just fun but Joao begins to fall inn love with her. Hermila begins to realize that Mateus is not coming or going to send her money to help raise their child so she decides to leave Igatu but she cannot afford a bus ticket. She decides to raffle her body for "a night in paradise" and gives herself the name, Suely.
News of the raffle quickly spreads and Hermila has no idea that what she is doing is against the law. She just knows that she wants a better life than the one she has. She is open-minded and resourceful but she is also self-centered who cannot set aside her own needs and desires for her family. Like other poor people she dreams of a better life and is willing to do what is necessary to get it.
"Love for Sale" is a movie that focuses more on the actors than the plot. The camera work is slow and quite beautiful. We learn about people who are beyond the necessities of life. There are no wealthy people in the film--we see the real world in its inequalities and we see in Brazil the unequal societies of the entire world. "Love for Sale" sheds light on those societies and especially on urban migration. Yet it is also a film about a woman and the choices she makes which are painful.
Hermila (Hermila Guedes) is a remarkable actress and is very convincing as a woman that men would buy raffle tickets to sleep with. She wonderfully portrays the range of emotions from wild abandon to despair but unfortunately her character is not fully formed as the movie at times meanders.
Karim Ainouz, the director who gave us the wonderful "Madame Sata" deals with reality here. His focus on a non-conformist, independent protagonist who uses her body to defy society and express personal freedom as a symbol of self-strength is amazing. Be warned--this is a slow movie and it is easy to become bored but sticking with it can bring about a wonderful experience.

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