O OUTRO LADO DA RUA / THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET (2004)
Director: Marcos Bernstein
Cast: Fernanda Montenegro, Raul Cortez, Laura Cardoso, Luiz Carlos Persy, Miguel Lunardi
Screenplay: Marcos Bernstein, Melanie Dimantas
As in Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 thriller Rear Window, the amateur sleuth in Marcos Bernstein's feature film debut, O Outro Lado da Rua / The Other Side of the Street, believes she has witnessed a murder while spying with binoculars on a neighbor. But has she, or is it all a figment of the imagination of a lonely, embittered older woman?
Unlike Hitchcock, Bernstein (co-writer of Walter Salles' Oscar-nominated Central Station) is less preoccupied with the alleged murder than with the psychological and emotional workings of the two protagonists: a widower (Raul Cortez) who may or may not have killed his ailing (and wealthy) wife and the lonely divorcée (Fernanda Montenegro) who spends much of her time as a "senior-citizen spy" for the Rio de Janeiro police.
Bernstein, who co-wrote the screenplay of The Other Side of the Street with Melanie Dimantas, treats his characters with an incisive but compassionate eye, and his direction is for the most part remarkably accomplished. Missing from this psychological drama, however, is the melancholy atmosphere essential for a tale about longing and inner emptiness.
Even so, The Other Side of the Street is well worth watching for its straightforward handling of the problems of aging and loneliness in our ever more impersonal world, and for the presence of Brazil's Grand Dame of stage and television, Fernanda Montenegro (Academy Award nominee for Central Station), who delivers a strong — if at times a tad calculated — performance as the elderly woman in search of a sense of self.
Reviewed at the AFI FEST.