El libro de los placeres

In an era of throwaway romances and emotional apathy, a lonely Brazilian teacher meets a provocative Argentinian teacher and they begin a game of seduction and love. Loosely adapted from the novel by Clarice Lispector, O Livro dos Prazeres is a fascinating erotic drama about the risks of love. More than coming of age, this film is part of another path of change, which could be called coming of love, in a romantic-erotic-emotional path with a protagonist, Simone Spoladore—who was a brilliant debut actress in Lavoura arcaica—who embraces her character with extraordinary and exciting determination. And this film – whose ambition is evident from its founding literary starting point – has the firm conviction of believing in the character and proposing an assertive manner at all times, and strives to condense and stretch actions according to its own dynamics and without fashionable speculation. O livro dos prazeres escapes the temptations of opportunism, with all the risks that having a personality in contemporary Latin American cinema entails.