Em Busca do Passado

This is one film I am always recommending to friends looking for something "different" to see. On paper it sounds like one of those 1940's "women's pictures" but in execution it is something really special and beautiful. Gillian Armstrong adds real texture and symbolic heft to the simple story--those speeding-camera shots of the water are wonderful!--and is aided by a sublime cast. Judy Davis gives what is, for my money, quite possibly the greatest performance ever captured on film. She has two scenes in particular--the initial confrontation with her ex-mother-in-law, and a lengthy conversation in a parked car with her daughter where she tries to explain and make sense of her life--that are just extraordinary. This is acting of the highest order and, like the film itself, rises above its meager melodramatic roots.