La Passion selon G.H.

This is a challenging film. Just like Clarice Lispector's book. This is the moment when word and image meet. A feature film honed over decades, just as the author of the book deserves. It brings more discomfort than support; after all, we are talking about a work of art.

This is a film that requires public sensibility. And much more. Audiences need to be prepared to step into G. H.'s most undesirable gaps-only words can rescue a person from their certainties.

G. H. Becomes a mirror for those who see her. Sometimes, it's difficult to see yourself thinking. For many, it can make them sleepy. For others, it may be a chance to find themselves outside themselves, on the screen.

Anyone who goes to the movies expecting to see a movie will probably leave disappointed. As Clarice Lispector's work was not about literature but about witchcraft, this movie is no different.

The Passion According to G. H., a Clarice Lispector's novel considered by many to be an "unfilmable" work, becomes a revelation in the hands of the director Luiz Fernando Carvalho and of the actress Maria Fernanda Cândido. It is a masterpiece in which images and music intertwine with the text in such an organic way that we realize they were born from the same source: from the Art that springs from the depths of the soul. The great and talented actress Maria Fernanda Candido achieves a level of excellence in this wonderful, powerful, strong, delicate and sensitive work, with the impeccable aesthetics of Luiz Fernando Carvalho.

Just watched yesterday (Saturday) at a film festival Luiz Fernando Carvalho's second feature, 22 years after "To The Left of Father", his first feature. Before starting, suspect of any other extensive review considering this film "a masterpiece", comparing it to works of filmmakers known strictly to cinephiles such as Godard, Pasolini, Antonioni, Bergman and others. Summarizing in a few words: two hours straight of endless speech by the female lead and boredom. Almost the whole movie is shown in pan&scan aspect ratio (or 1:33 aspect ratio), the bored woman looking straight to the camera while speaking, crying, smiling. Endless blah, blah, blah on nothing. Sometimes alternate with B&W moments. Only very few moments to highlight: the maid, a young black woman, drawing in her bedroom's wall; the bored female lead destroying the drawings at the wall; and the close-ups of the living cockroach and its bleeding lymph. The director shot his own foot with his new feature. This movie is not for healthy and normal people. Not recommended.

If you're looking to simply watch a movie to accompany your popcorn, avoid this masterpiece. The Passion according to G. H. goes much further. It is a dense and existential cinematic experience, built from the encounter of two masters of fictional narrative: Clarice Lispector and Luiz Fernando Carvalho. Exciting!

I was very impacted.

The film is as vigorous as the book. I was looking forward to watching a film based on a book so loved by me. It was very surprising and I felt touched every second of the film. It is a work in itself, a very strong creation, as is Clarice's literary work. The face, eyes, and mouth of Samira/Janair, the images of the insect, and the splendid Maria Fernanda/GH will remain forever in my memory. They are images of a cinematic vigor that go beyond the aesthetics of beauty, elevating cinema to a universe of flaming, ancestral, and organic drive. In this way, the film imposes a new, innovative paradigm that fills a gap in the Brazilian film scenario: a new perspective on the director/interpreter relationship. Starting from GH, the creation of the interpreters goes beyond what Bergman, Fassbinder, Bresson, Glauber, Antonioni... who loved and took care of their actors.

Carvalho, perhaps using processes that mix languages such as those of Grotowski or Stanylavsky with others of his cinematic culture (actors Studio), establishes a unique creative energy, an Improvisational, epidermal ritual, of affection and friction in relation to images. An aesthetic amalgam between the filmmaker and the actress seems to reveal itself at the moment the scene is made, in the passion for ethics of bodies, in the enchantment of performance, in improvisation as a counterpoint to the conventions of naturalistic interpretation, transforming the actress into a co-author of the cinematographic work. All the other elements that make up and structure the narrative will be dragged by this amalgam that transmutes any and all objects, space, or time into the body. In the film, everything is body: the scenography, the costumes, the photography, the music, the montage. All are interconnected in a fluid and deep movement as a Being that presents itself through a single body. In the countercurrent of the language of classical cinema, the filmmaker provocatively places himself in the territory of the actor/actress as a starting point in his creation process that seeks to transmute film into the body, transforming the invisible into the visible and vice versa. The director and interpreter put themselves at the service of the spirit/ synthesis of a literary work and, therefore, the film is not configured as a simple adaptation, revealing itself as a powerful transfiguration.

As I watch GH, I hear that everything is sacred, imbued with the experience of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the mystery that both repels and attracts.

And it is in this space where sacredness (capable of communing with the impure) prevails, that I see the happy meeting between Clarice, Luiz Fernando Carvalho and Maria Fernanda Cândido emerge.

An unclassifiable experience! Exciting! Unique! Radical and necessary! Thank you!

To watch this film, it seems necessary to know the work of Clarice Lispector.

Clarice has a very particular, rich writing that is not classified as easy (despite the incredibly clear images she is capable of transmitting). Therefore, you cannot expect anything pleasant or captivating. This is not the idea. It wouldn't make sense for a film based on her work not to be dense.

I read some criticisms here talking about a boring monologue. Clearly those who don't realize what they are going to see and prefer to talk badly about what they don't know. Everyone can have opinions but when it's baseless, use to be uninteresting.

It's not a film for any audience, that's for sure. But if we consider that it has a beautiful scenography, excellent photography, complex but captivating text and exquisite aesthetics, it is very difficult to think that it deserves to be evaluated as boring.

If you like density, go for it.