Amor Estranho Amor -love Strange Love- -1982- English Today

You will not find Amor Estranho Amor on Netflix or Amazon Prime. You will not see it listed on IMDb without a warning tag. It remains a film for archivists, for legal scholars, and for the morbidly curious. But if you choose to seek it out, go with open eyes. You are not watching a romance. You are watching a car crash in slow motion—one that Brazil is still trying to walk away from.

Rating: Unrateable. Amor Estranho Amor, Love Strange Love, 1982, English, Walter Hugo Khouri, Vera Fischer, Marcelo Ribeiro, Brazilian cult film, banned movies. Amor Estranho Amor -Love Strange Love- -1982- English

Through a long flashback, we learn Hugo is revisiting the brothel where he lost his virginity as a 12-year-old boy. The young Hugo (Marcelo Ribeiro) is sent by his wealthy, neglectful grandmother to live temporarily in a high-class bordello in São Paulo. This is not a gritty den of vice but an elegant mansion filled with bored, sophisticated courtesans. You will not find Amor Estranho Amor on

Tarcísio Meira, playing a client named Dr. Osmar, barely appears compared to Fischer. He is mostly a witness to the orgy. Yet his association with the film damaged his reputation as a matinee idol. Both actors later refused to discuss the film publicly, though bootleg VHS copies (and later DVDs) circulated wildly throughout Brazil and Europe. For English-speaking viewers tracking down Love, Strange Love , the question is inevitable: Is this art or pornography? But if you choose to seek it out, go with open eyes

In interviews (translated for English audiences), Khouri argued that Amor Estranho Amor was a metaphor for Brazil itself during the military dictatorship (1964–1985). The brothel represents the nation. The politicians (the adult Hugo) are corrupted by their first encounter with power—which Khouri equates with sex. The boy represents innocence corrupted by a decadent, authoritarian state.