In "Alice's House," Alice(Carla Ribas), the mother of three sons, lives in a cramped apartment that also includes her mother(Berta Zemel). Her husband, Lindomar(Zecarlos Machado) is a cab driver who is carrying on with a neighborhood teenager, Thais(Mariana Leighton). Their oldest son, Lucas(Vinicius Zinn) who is 21,
is in the army, supplementing his income by having sex with other men and gives romantic tips to his younger brother, Junior(Felipe Massuia). During the day, Alice works at a beauty salon whose best customer is Carmen(Renata Zhaneta), wife to Nilson(Luciano Quirino) who owns a car dealership. Nilson turns out to be an old flame of Alice's. "Alice's House" starts slowly but builds to a powerfully ironic finale. And it has a great way of capturing everyday life in the smallest of gestures, especially in the closeups of the hands of standees on a bus, signifying how much everybody is holding on for dear life in modern society. At the same time, everybody in Alice's family is looking upwards, even if they are not exerting much effort in the process.(Thus serving as a temporary ceasefire in the class war.) Even though they live a decent enough life, the situation of their living quarters has slowly eroded the solidarity of the family bonds over the years.
February 10, 2008
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