Holding onto the memories
Brazilian-born actress Sonia Braga was 8 years old when her father died suddenly from a heart attack or stroke. She is 66 now, and still recalls a day that started like any other. She was playing by herself when she heard the gate open, signaling her dad’s return home. She remembers hugging him in welcome and all of the other little details of a typical night at home that ended shockingly with his death.
“I don’t have many memories from when I was little, but he loved reading, my father did,” Braga says during a recent Skype conversation. “There was a bookshelf at home. When my father died, we lost everything. We didn’t have money, nothing, but we kept the books . ... All of us — there were seven — everyone had a duty at home. One of mine was to take care of the bookshelf, cleaning the books, making sure they were OK . ... When I was with my father’s books, I imagined my father reading them.”
What brings forth this recollection is a discussion of time travel. Not in the literal sense, but in the way the things that surround us and the places we live can not only bring forth memories but also make them come alive.
That is just one aspect of “Aquarius,” Braga’s new film. Made in her native Brazil by writer-director Kleber Mondonça Filho, the movie is about Clara, a widow and retired music critic refusing to buckle under the pressure from a developer to vacate her seaside Recife apartment in the otherwise empty Aquarius building. It is a wonderful dwelling, the place in which she raised her children, with a gorgeous view and packed to the brim with her records, tapes, photographs and other objects that represent her life.
“Your memory, it goes back in time,” Braga says. “That apartment, Clara’s apartment, we got some stuff that we got from my house, like there is one apple made of silver. Every time I look at that apple, I could see so many houses, family, I was part of it, growing up and everything. It was still the same apple, the same silver apple.”
Braga began acting when she was a teenager. She became an international sensation in her twenties with the release of Bruno Barreto’s “Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands.” Films like “Gabriela” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” burnished her reputation for sensuality. She’s remained a busy actress — this year in addition to “Aquarius,” she had a recurring role in the acclaimed Marvel series “Luke Cage” — but she admits she had been considering leaving the business when Mondonça’s screenplay arrived.
“I was content doing photography, going for walks, and being happy in life,” Braga says. “I hadn’t had a screenplay for the lead in so long and then comes ‘Aquarius.’ I hadn’t done anything in my tongue, in Portuguese. I had so many big issues with Brazil, and there it is, a platform to be able to talk about it. And along comes Kleber, one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with. When I read the script, I grew suspicious that he was spying on me, in my life. I think he’s a spy, Kleber.”
There have been surprises along the way since the premiere of “Aquarius” at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. One of them has been the reaction to Clara’s sexuality — she may be a widow, but she hasn’t become a nun, the movie offering a rare portrayal of the sex life of a woman over 60.
“Women, unfortunately, don’t have the same privileges as men,” Braga says. “One of them is be looked at as a sexual animal at, say, 70 or 80. I know some men in their 80s and people still say, ‘Oh my God, he’s so sexy.’ ”
Another surprise was the controversy that has swirled around the movie in Brazil. “Aquarius” does subtly comment on official and unofficial corruption through the actions of the developer trying to evict Clara, but it was the cast and crew’s protest against the impeachment of democratically elected Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and the abolition of the country’s culture ministry that enraged the Brazilian government.
In punishment, the film received a rare 18+ rating — Brazil’s version of NC-17 — for sex and drug use, to dim its commercial prospects.
Still, despite the government’s moves, “Aquarius” is popular in Brazil. And Braga is getting the last laugh.
“So many people have sent messages to me saying that they want to sit with Clara and know her. They want to meet her,” she says. “I want to, too. I want to go to that room. I want to be with those records. I want to be in that apartment with the ocean outside. I want to be in that city. I really want to be her. I want to fight like her, standing her ground. It’s so beautiful.”
“Women, unfortunately, don’t have the same privileges as men. One of them is be looked at as a sexual animal at, say, 70 or 80. I know some men in their 80s and people still say, ‘Oh my God, he’s so sexy.’ ” Sonia Braga, who stars as Clara in “Aquarius”