This story of poverty and destiny, adapted from the novel by Clarice Lispector, was the first feature film from fifty-two-year-old director and mother of nine Suzana Amaral. In a brilliantly plain performance that begs comparison to Giulietta Masina, Marcélia Cartaxo plays an unexpectedly memorable heroine: Macabea, a grubby 19-year-old eking out a living on the margins of São Paulo. When she's not working or dining on hot dogs and Coca-Cola, Macabea loses herself in vaguely romantic fantasies; although she's hopelessly ill-groomed, she manages an almost random romance with the callous Olimpico, who berates her for her ignorance even though he poorly conceals his own. It's true, Macabea is impossibly naive; everything she knows she learned from Time Radio Station, a 24-hour broadcast that dispenses irrelevant trivia between announcements of the hour. The radio is a constant background presence, ticking off the minutes until Macabea meets her fate-which proves to be both a climax of movie-made fantasy and a reminder of heartbreaking reality.-Juliet Clarke