As Feras (1995)

Synopsis [spoilers]: A woman starts working on a production of Wedekind's Lulu play or plays for the stage; her boyfriend (named Paulo) gets jealous; the director is a woman; she has a relationship with another actress in the play; Paulo has had a traumatic experience in his youth: he was in love with his cousin but she had a relationship with an older woman who treated him badly; while waiting for the rehearsal to end one day, Paulo has a long talk with the actor who will play Jack the Ripper, who tells him about how his former girlfriend left him for another woman.

Appraisal: The theme (as it is plainly obvious from the synopsis above) is the mix of fear and fascination which some men feel regarding homosexuality in women. This is rarely dealt with in films, I think (the closest things that come to mind are some films by Ferreri and the whole subgenre of female vampires); it's not a good film, it'd better be said, it's repetitive and not at all remarkable on the mise-en-scene aspect. But it's consistent with Khouri's oeuvre, which is devoted to the dissection of the male psyche. It was originally conceived as an episode in a film called As Primas which was completed around 1994 and remained unreleased; Khouri used the material he filmed turning it into a feature-length film which apparently was not released until 2001.

Rating: 32