"Passionada"

She may be a grieving widow, but her rapturous singing -- and voluptuous curves -- suggest she won't be for long, in this sunny summer idyll.

By Charles Taylor

Aug 15, 2003 | When the director George Stevens made his famous remark that CinemaScope was good only for photographing snakes and funerals, he was leaving out other possibilities. (Anyone who's seen Brigitte Bardot lounging gloriously nude across the screen as she sunbathes in Roger Vadim's "... And God Created Woman" knows that.) Stevens was speaking as a filmmaker concerned that spectacle would come to replace story and character, the nuts and bolts of movie craft. Had he lived to see the movies of director Dan Ireland, he might have thought differently about CinemaScope.

Ireland's aesthetic might be called modest greed. His movies aren't showy, but he wants the bigness that 'Scope can provide and the intimacy that comes from the interplay between actors, from the observation devoted to story and setting. Ireland may use the wide screen more intimately than any other contemporary director. In his first film, the fittingly titled "Whole Wide World," he drank in the atmosphere of Depression-era west Texas with gorgeous shots of the dry, sunbaked landscape, and he brought us heartbreakingly close to the love story between Renée Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio.

His new film, "Passionada," doesn't allow for the same depth. It's a slight movie, a sunny romantic idyll. But the ease with which he works in wide screen, his casual yet precise sense of composition, and his talent for working with actors are all present here. Set in the Portuguese community of New Bedford, Mass., "Passionada" (photographed by Claudio Rocha) has the relaxing beauty of a great summer vacation, the kind where you don't do anything particularly special but leave feeling recharged. That feeling is present not just in the scenes you'd expect it to be -- a street fair where it seems like the entire neighborhood has turned out -- but in the way Ireland and Rocha show us the suburban streets, the familiarity with which the characters go about their everyday chores. New Bedford may seem like an ordinary setting, but the greatest pleasure of "Passionada" is the way it allows you to wander those streets, taking in a new place, feeling the sun and the breeze and the spray of the ocean on your skin. (Their accomplishment is all the more impressive if you know how grungy parts of the town can be.)

The heroine of the script, credited to Jim Jermanok and Steve Jermanok, is Celia (Sofia Milos), a dark stunner who is already a widow in her mid-30s. Her fisherman husband was lost at sea, and Celia has taken a vow to be true to his memory. There's something both passionate and comical in her devotion to her dead husband. Tossing roses into the surf to commemorate his death at the beginning of the movie, she looks like a figure out of tragic opera. But she's too ripe, too alive, to be locked into the self-denying role she's carved out for herself. Milos' frame, long yet subtly voluptuous, tells you she's not ready for the black dresses and sensible shoes of the old widows you can see in any Mediterranean community.

The feelings she's locked away find their release in her gig at a local Portuguese restaurant singing fado, the Portuguese folk music that focuses on tales of love gone wrong and undying passion. It's the sort of popular music that allows for the dramatization and emotional wallow you get listening to Maria Callas. And the reason it makes such an impact here isn't just that Milos cuts a memorably dramatic figure performing, but that the vocals are supplied by the great Portuguese fado singer Misia. (Two recommendations about seeing "Passionada": Don't do it on an empty stomach -- the array of dishes Celia cooks in one scene will make you ravenous. And make sure there's a record store near the theater. If you've never heard Misia, chances are, you'll want to rush out and buy her CDs, as I did.)

We understand it immediately when Charlie Beck (Jason Isaacs) wanders into the restaurant one night during Celia's performance and is helplessly smitten. Charlie, who's English, is a professional gambler who's hit a streak of bad luck. Identified as a card counter, he's been banned by most casinos. One of the only ones open to him is the Indian casino near New Bedford (the casino scenes were shot at the Mohegan Sun resort). He's gone there to work his trade while enjoying the largesse of his friends Dan and Lois (Seymour Cassel and Theresa Russell), a pair of card sharps from his glory days who have accumulated enough to settle down and enjoy life in style. Charlie may have hit a bad patch, but he's nothing if not persistent. Though he's as out of place in New Bedford as a zebra in Texas, he sets out to woo Celia. She has not allowed for the possibility of loving a man again, and when he keeps butting up against her stubbornness, he concocts a story about having spent time in Portugal, tantalizing her with bits of knowledge he's picked up and making her believe their love match is fated.

Next Page: Definitely not "My Big Fat Portuguese Widowhood"

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