Metrograph

Mendonça Filho provided Sônia Braga, the grande dame of Brazilian cinema, with her greatest role of the 21st century as Clara, a headstrong sixtysomething music writer who, as the last resident of the titular apartment building, digs in her heels to engage in a one-woman war with the construction company plotting to build a high rise in its place, first proposing to buy her out before turning to more nefarious tactics. A subtly shaded character study anchored by Braga’s peerless performance—imperious and vulnerable in turn—Aquarius ignited a firestorm of controversy in Brazil upon its release for its depiction, in miniature, of the cronyism and corruption running rampant in the country as a whole, released as it was in the immediate aftermath of the impeachment of socialist President Dilma Rousseff.