O Jardim Secreto de Mariana

""‘The Secret Garden of Mariana’, a dramatic romance that seeks to bring out the most instinctive of love and relationships, is not a movie you can watch without being shaken or provoked. Directed by Sérgio Rezende, the filmmaker behind ‘O Paciente’ and ‘Guerra de Canudos’, the feature film plays with the boundaries of the genre all the time. It's a gentle movie, but with an embedded brutality in its story that shocks, provokes, and stimulates. There is hidden violence, but it never reaches the surface. The comparisons with flowers and their brutal sexuality are not in vain. At the center of the story, holding this complex tone suggested by the filmmaker, is the story of a couple (Andréia Horta and Gustavo Vaz) who live happily in a rural area, surrounded by nature, flowers, and fruits. However, things quickly start to unravel when they discover they cannot have children. Nature there seems vandalized. Soon the couple begins to follow instinctive paths. Even though it slips in telling this whole story from the husband's point of view, especially due to a shocking twist halfway through the plot, it is a good example of how national cinema knows how to tell good stories, provoking and stimulating its audience.""