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Wondrously weird and a skosh too long, “Good Manners” is a dark Brazilian fable of animalistic passions and social isolation. Swerving from predictable to confounding, dreamy to demented, artful to awkward, this genre-twisting hybrid from Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra links art house and slaughterhouse with unexpected success. When you drop a werewolf child into a lesbian love affair, you don’t need musical numbers to grasp that you’re watching something unique.
Set in a mostly nocturnal São Paulo, the story sends Clara (a riveting Isabél Zuaa), an African-Brazilian nurse, to be a nanny for a wealthy single mother to be, Ana (Marjorie Estiano). Spoiled and estranged from her plantation-owning family, Ana initially treats Clara as a personal maid. But as her delivery approaches and her behaviors become more disturbing — among them, sleepwalking and feline hunting — the women grow closer and more mutually reliant. When the child-monster arrives, it will tear mother, and movie, apart.
Ambitiously allegorical, “Good Manners” dramatizes class and racial tensions in contemporary Brazil by creating contrasting worlds: rich and poor, black and white, high-rise chic and shantytown. Suffused with harp music and gorgeously lighted (the cinematographer, Rui Poças, paints inky shadows you could drown in), the film blends raw horror, deftly composed songs, beautifully drawn storyboards and strong lead performances into a single, elegant package.
Leaping forward almost 10 years, the second half shifts gears as Clara struggles to help her intermittently hairy charge (played by the charming, and aptly named, Miguel Lobo) pass in public. The little beast is slowly learning who he is; but, clearly, his directors — who previously collaborated on the drama “Hard Labor” — already have their identities down pat.
Not rated. In Portuguese, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.
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