<br /><div class="MsoNormal">The film <i>Gabriela</i>, directed by Bruno Barreto in 1983, is the love story of a servant and a bar owner.<span> </span>In Brazil, 1925, Gabriela is hired as the cook for Nacib’s bar, and the two eventually fall in love and get married.<span> </span>Nacib, an educated man, soon becomes impatient with Gabriela’s ignorant ways, and discovers that she has been having an affair with his best friend Tonico.<span> </span>He challenged the ways of punishment for adultery, which at the time was usually death in a crime of passion.<span> </span>Nacib annuls the marriage instead.<span> </span>His handling of the situation causes a slight change in the ideas of his community, and later Gabriela returns as Nacib’s mistress.<span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Although this film did not claim to be a true story or even to be historically accurate, it did a fine job in addressing the issue of crimes of passion during the early 20<sup>th</sup> century Brazil.<span> </span>Around that time, Brazil was experiencing a spike in gender conflict because of the rapid rise of urban-industrial society (Besse 656).<span> </span><i>Gabriela </i>shows this change on a legal and a social level in the small town the film was set in.<span> </span>Nacib witnesses a crime of passion right as it happened in the beginning of the film, where a man caught his wife having an affair, and shot both her and her lover.<span> </span>Later, Nacib talks about the scene at his bar, and most of the men agree that it was the husband’s right to shoot the two.<span> </span>This occurs before Gabriela and Nacib were married.<span> </span>At this time, Nacib agrees also.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>During this time period, Brazil was “in a process through which both urban space and the culturally and ethnically diverse Latin American populations would come to resemble those of white, industrialized Europe” (Caulfield 149).<span> </span>In the film, and English engineer moved into the town, which lead to an increase in the town’s diversity.<span> </span>Also, the government of the town changed, which lead to a convicted for a crime of passion.<span> </span>But during the inauguration of the new regime, Nacib witnesses the new mayor embracing and chatting with a member of the old regime.<span> </span>This tells Nacib that even though things have changed, they are still going to be the same.<span> </span>When he witnesses Gabriela cheating on him with Tonico, he proceeds to beat the two, but does not kill either of them.<span> </span>And in the end, Nacib and Gabriela end up together in bed again, with a renewed love for each other outside of marriage again.<span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><i>Gabriela </i>also told the story in the view of Brazilian culture, being centered on family and tight relationships.<span> </span>Family stability was very important, and the blame was placed on women when there were problems in it.<span> </span>Women “were held to be responsible for instilling moral values in society” (Caulfield 153).<span> </span>The men in <i>Gabriela</i> considered it to be cowardly not to kill an unfaithful wife.<span> </span>When Nacib found her cheating, he considered simply leaving the town until he settled for an annulment.<span> </span>The film <i>Gabriela </i>succeeded in two ways of being informative.<span> </span>First, it portrayed women as catching the blame for when family affairs went sour, and second it told that in early 20<sup>th</sup> century Brazil, many crimes of passion occurred and were seen as justice for the adulterer.<span> </span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4519892394579927293-7273851905050262951?l=jeremiahglass.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>