Lower City: Review

This isn't going to be very well written, I fully admit. I'm tired, and it's late, but I wanted to write down all my thoughts before I forgot them.

Tonight I watched a Brazilian film called "Lower City." It is the story of two "brothers," childhood friends actually, who meet a whore who offers up herself to both of them for a ride on their boat to a different city. One brother is black, the other is white, and the whore appears mixed. This image carries through the entire film. Before they reach their final destination, they make a stop in some town and watch a cock fight. Oh yes, it foreshadows what will eventually happen to them: one rooster is black, one is white, and they beat each other to a bloody pulp. And don't forget that it is a "cock" fight. The whore ultimately has control of both of their cocks just as the referee controls the roosters.

Naturally, the two brothers fall in love with the whore, which causes them to turn against one another. Her mixed ethnicity seems to embody the combination of them. I don't know how to better phrase that, but I'm sure you get the idea. She gets pregnant, but really, it could be either of theirs, or someone else's altogether (her job is to have sex with random people, after all). Just like the roosters, they beat each other up, and at the end, the whore is shown tending to their wounds, dabbing at them from the same white cloth, then soaking the cloth in a bowl of water. Their blood effectively mixes in the bowl, impossible to separate, just as the two friends are forever intertwined.

I'm guessing that all this probably also represents something political, but I don't know enough about Brazil to venture a guess on that one.

Anyway, although it's been at least 9 years since I've read a Greek tragedy (but believe me, I read quite a few), this tale could easily have been ripped from one of them. Two brothers torn asunder by a woman. It's a common theme. But here's my question: why do I not ever remember seeing or reading the tale of two sisters torn asunder by a man? Why are woman depicted so much more often in such a role? Sure, there are bad guys in films all the time: devious criminals, seducers of innocent, naive women, etc. but rarely are they put in quite such a position as in this film. Why?

Not to say that the woman in this film was evil; she wasn't, she didn't do any of this purposefully. But I guess that's what makes it a tragedy. But temptresses seem quite common, tempters, much less so.