When
will male-dominant Latin cultures ever allow women’s liberation?
In Woman on Top, director Fina Torres poses
this question of Toninho Oliveira (played by Murilo Benício),
the owner of a successful restaurant in Bahía, Brazil, who
has relegated his wife Isabella (played by Penelope Cruz)
to the kitchen as chef while he gets all the credit with his
customers. Supplying voiceovers, particularly at the beginning
of the film Cliff Lloyd (played by Mark Feuerstein) tells
us that Isabella suffers from motion sickness. She gets ill
from being a passenger of a vehicle, riding in an elevator,
or even being on the bottom during sex. Although her husband
Toninho reluctantly concedes to be her bottom, one day he
sneaks next door to be on top of a neighbor women. Isabella’s
discovery of his adultery is the last straw, so she flies
to San Francisco to live with Monica (played by Harold Perrineau,
Jr.), a male happily dressed as a female. Her search for employment
as a chef proves fruitless until the head of culinary school
suddenly has a vacancy. When she walks to school on her second
day as teacher, a flock of men follow her, including Cliff,
a television producers who later persuades his boss to have
Isabella host a cooking program at 7:30 p.m. Isabella, in
turn, insists that Monica must be a part of the show. Meanwhile,
Toninho’s restaurant fails without her good cooking, and he
misses her companionship, so in exasperation he throws something
into the sea that stops the fish from being caught. He then
flies to San Francisco to beg Isabella to return to Brazil.
Searching in vain around town, he spots her on television
in a bar, where the male customers primarily see her as a
delicious dish while she prepares her tasty dishes. Sneaking
onto the television station, Toninho and Brazilian musicians
who have accompanied him from Brazil provide unexpected musical
background for a program while he tries in the foreground
to plead with her to return to Brazil. The television station
executive insists, contrary to Isabella’s wishes, that he
become a part of the show because the musical background adds
to the show’s ratings. Adamantly refusing Toninho’s plea to
go back to Brazil, Isabella asserts her independence by trying
to seduce Cliff, who in turn demurs when he finds that she
wants to be on top, though he offers the pretext that she
is still being pursued by Toninho. Meanwhile, Monica is giving
advice to both Toninho and Cliff on how to gain favor with
Isabella. Toninho remains persistent, serenading Isabella
Latin style below the balcony of the apartment that she shares
with Monica. One day network executives decide to syndicate
her cooking show nationally. When they insist that she must
drop Monica from the show and abandon her colorful Brazilian
wardrobe, she quits and is soon reunited with Toninho, but
only after he agrees to all her demands—that she will do the
driving, be on top in sex, and take the credit for the success
of the restaurant. When they return to Bahía, the fish bit
again, but Monica also comes along with her new boyfriend
-- Cliff. For many filmviewers, who will recall a similar
plot in the Mexican film Like Water for Chocolate
(1992), the best part of the film will be neither the comedy
nor even the ease with which Brazilian blacks, Latins, and
whites sleep with one another. Instead, the succession of
romantic Brazilian love songs, which top even Black
Orpheus (1959), provide melodies so haunting that
the soundtrack is second to none for the year 2000. MH
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want to comment on this film
