{"id":2716,"date":"2016-01-07T19:50:58","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T19:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/01\/07\/the-second-mother-turns-the-tables-in-brazilian-home\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T19:50:58","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T19:50:58","slug":"the-second-mother-turns-the-tables-in-brazilian-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/01\/07\/the-second-mother-turns-the-tables-in-brazilian-home\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Second Mother’ Turns the Tables in Brazilian Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Ashton \/ Desert Sun<\/em><\/p>\n

Val is a live-in housekeeper in Sao Paulo, Brazil, for a well off family. Barbara (Karine Teles), the lady of the house, is a social butterfly and ‘style setter.’ Carlos (Louren\u00e7o Mutarelli<\/a>) is a trust funder who once aspired to be an artist, and Fabinho (Michel Joelsas), the teenage son, is not particularly motivated and may not pass his exams to get into the school of his choice. Val took the job years ago so she could send money home to care for her own daughter, J\u00e9ssica (Camila M\u00e1rdila),\u00a0who was left with relatives.<\/p>\n

Fabinho seeks comfort in the arms of the woman who raised him: not his mother, but Val (played by legendary Regina Cas\u00e9), who still lets the teenager sleep in her bed when he is distressed.<\/p>\n

Val suddenly hears from her daughter, J\u00e9ssica, who wants to come to the city to take her exams for architectural school, and will stay with the mother she has not spoken with for years. When J\u00e9ssica arrives, she takes her liberties refusing to acknowledge the boundaries of servant and master that bind her mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Second Mother\u201d (\u201cQue horas ela volta?\u201d), director Anna Muylaert’s fourth film, says a lot about parenting as well as class and the oppression of self limitations in today’s Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started to do this film when I become a mother and refused to get a nanny,\u201d the director says in an exclusive interview with The Desert Sun. \u201cI wanted to do the job myself, but in my social position I was expected to find myself a nanny. I considered motherhood to be sacred, although my culture considered it to be lower-class work. So I started to think about it, and when I decided to pick the nanny as the main character, all these social class impositions and limitations came into being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muylaert started writing \u201cThe Second Mother\u201d 20 years ago, and wanted it to be her first feature. But funding was not able to be raised for it, and she went into production on \u201cDurval Discos\u201d and then made \u201cSmoke Gets In Your Eyes,\u201d also starring Brazilian super-star Regina Cas\u00e9. Muylaert wrote screenplays and made her third feature \u201cCollect Call,\u201d then came back to \u201cThe Second Mother\u201d and reworked it.<\/p>\n

In the ensuing two decades Brazil went through dramatic social changes, and so did Muylaert’s characters. J\u00e9ssica, the daughter, in particular, transformed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the very beginning, J\u00e9ssica was a small kid and Val was the strong one,\u201d Muylaert says. \u201cAs years passed, J\u00e9ssica grew but then she became the ‘daughter of the maid’ clich\u00e9. Just six\u00a0months before we started shooting J\u00e9ssica took her final form.\u201d Now, J\u00e9ssica is the most mature and courageous of all the characters.<\/p>\n

Fabinho, the son, is more attached to Val, the maid, than he is to his own mother; and Val is more attached to Fabinho than she is to her own daughter. This makes for a very powerful dynamic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to talk about this ‘dance of the chairs’: nobody is being taken care by the right mom,\u201d Muylaert says. \u201cIt has to do with the Brazilian title, ‘Que horas ela volta?’ ( when does she return?) I wanted to talk about the work of motherhood which is so important, but not really well valued.\u201d<\/p>\n

The acting in \u201cThe Second Mother\u201d is superb and Muylaert has a special way of working with actors. \u201cI do a lot of rehearsals and exercises and games with the actors and actresses to try to develop the characters, to get them in our hands,\u201d she says. \u201cBy the time we shoot I tell them to fly, to go further, to reinvent the scenes \u2013 always respecting the function of the scene, but I dare them to go further. I like to be surprised on the set.\u201d<\/p>\n

Val doesn’t feel it is right for her to sit at the family table, yet J\u00e9ssica just DOES it. What does this say about generation differences in Brazil today? \u201cThe new generation is starting to respect themselves more. They are having a little more access to education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Val and the other characters are symbolic of the social conditions in Brazil today, Muylaert says. \u201cEach person is a different player in the same game. Even the architecture of the house, and its many walls and doors, is symbolic,\u201d the director adds.<\/p>\n

Is there a parallel of the Brazilian film industry and women directors? Is it still hard to get ‘a place at the table?’ \u201cSexism exists in all areas. At this moment,\u00a0I think that women already have the right to work, but not always does she get credit. Or, in other words, she has the right to cook for those who will indeed get a place on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muylaert, also a scriptwriter, co-wrote \u201c”The Year My Parents Went on Vacation,” and was a writer of the well received film \u201cXingu.\u201d \u201cXingu had a deep impact on me at the time I was working, and still does. I still feel very connected to the people, their history and the whole culture of Xingu\u2019s people,\u201d Muylaert says. She made a point of showing her recent film “The Second Mother”\u00a0to them in the jungle. Many asked after the film: ‘Why does this house have so many walls?’\u201d After \u201cThe Second Mother,\u201d perhaps there will be fewer walls in the houses of Brazil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Ashton \/ Desert Sun Val is a live-in housekeeper in Sao Paulo, Brazil, for a well off family. Barbara (Karine Teles), the lady of the house, is a social butterfly and ‘style setter.’ Carlos (Louren\u00e7o Mutarelli) is a trust funder who once aspired to be an artist, and Fabinho (Michel Joelsas), the teenage son, … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n'The Second Mother' Turns the Tables in Brazilian Home - Thunderbird Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/01\/07\/the-second-mother-turns-the-tables-in-brazilian-home\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'The Second Mother' Turns the Tables in Brazilian Home - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Stephen Ashton \/ Desert Sun Val is a live-in housekeeper in Sao Paulo, Brazil, for a well off family. 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