(internationally released as Love Strange Love ) is an iconic, highly controversial 1982 Brazilian erotic drama film written and directed by auteur Walter Hugo Khouri. The film continues to captivate cinephiles and collectors seeking the elusive English exclusive versions, primarily due to its complex narrative framing, lavish production value, and an intense legal history that kept it out of the public eye for decades.
Some argue it is a masterwork of repressed memory—a visual poem about how childhood innocence is not stolen but simply outgrown in the wrong environment. Others call it an unforgivable exercise in aestheticized pedophilia, regardless of its period setting or artistic lineage. What is undeniable is the film’s refusal to provide catharsis. There is no rescue. The boy grows up to be the hollow-eyed man in the frame story, revisiting the brothel not with trauma but with detached nostalgia—the “strange love” of the title. amor estranho amor love strange love 1982 english exclusive
Walter Hugo Khouri is known for his "cinema of the absurd" and his fixation on female bodies. Visually, Love Strange Love is stunning. Unlike cheap pornos of the era, Khouri shot this like a European art film. (internationally released as Love Strange Love ) is
Because the film was legally suppressed inside Brazil for decades, international markets became the only legal avenue to view it. Others call it an unforgivable exercise in aestheticized