Amor Bandido

Bruno Barreto

A vividly unsettling mixture of sexploitation sleaze and hard-boiled melodrama, Bruno Barreto’s follow-up to Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands centers on a doomed romance set against the backdrop of a wanton killing spree in Rio’s Copacabana.

DIRECTOR
Bruno Barreto
YEAR
1979
COUNTRY
Brazil
RUNTIME
90 minutes
LANGUAGE
Portuguese with English subtitles

Bruno Barreto’s follow-up to Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is a love story of an entirely different order—a mixture of sexploitation sleaze and hard-boiled melodrama that calls to mind Hardcore and Natural Born Killers. Set within the tropical, overcrowded quarters of Rio’s Copacabana, where newsstands peddle porn in comic books and a serial killer preys upon cab drivers, go-go girl/sex worker Sandra (Christina Aché) and her sadistic hustler boyfriend Toninho (Paolo Guarnieri) play out a doomed romance against the backdrop of this wanton killing spree, which happens to be investigated by Sandra’s estranged cop father (Paulo Gracindo). Written by José Louzeiro and Leopoldo Serran, who allegedly based their screenplay on true events, Amor Bandido is a completely bizarre erotic tale about a stratified patriarchal society and the uncontrollable fallout of its disenfranchised youth. 4K restoration courtesy of L.C. Barreto Produções Cinematográficas.

High-powered filmmaking... electrifying in its carnality. Vivid, unsettling, taut.
Jim Hoberman, Village Voice
Amor Bandido
Amor Bandido
Amor Bandido
Amor Bandido
Amor Bandido

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