The movie “The Passion According to G.H.” is better than the novel on which it is based. It is with clear images that director Luiz Fernando Carvalho gives materiality to Clarice Lispector’s opaque abstractions.
The director is faithful to the writer’s murky and dull prose. Nor does it cheapen the plot, inventing lines or characters. What the film does is accentuate scenes and themes so that they become the nerves of the plot.
The “Passion” of the title does not refer to exacerbated romantic love. It refers to the Gospels, to the Way of the Cross of the Nazarene, to his inevitable death to redeem the sins of humanity.