When Love Is Gone.(Arts)(Hector Babenco's The Past)(Interview)

Byline: Mac Margolis

Hector Babenco's new film has him thinking about strong women, weak men and his Argentine past.

Over the past three decades, film director Hector Babenco has been all over the map. Born in Argentina, he makes his home in Brazil and shoots in English, Portuguese and Spanish. His movies have taken him from Depression-era Albany, New York ("Ironweed"), to the mean streets of Rio de Janeiro ("Pixote"), from the penitentiary ("Carandiru") to the pulpit ("At Play in the Fields of the Lord"). "Kiss of the Spider Woman" (1985) received an Academy Award nomination and won William Hurt an Oscar for best actor. Now Babenco returns to his native Argentina for his latest feature film, "The Past," a tale of love, liberty and loss starring Gael Garcia Bernal, based on an award-winning novel by Argentine author Alan Pauls. He recently spoke to NEWSWEEK's Mac Margolis by telephone from his home in Sao Paulo. Excerpts:

Margolis: You are best known for films grounded in a specific social or political context. What drew you to such an intimate story, about the aftermath of a love affair?

Babenco: I don't really believe that I am a political movie director. My strongest impulse has always been to flee from definitions, flags and ideologies.

I felt this was a story no one had told before, about what happens after an amicable separation and how latent love lingers on. Women tell me they can see themselves in the character [Sofia] who believes firmly that her ex-lover still belongs to her, and that despite his amorous adventures, love is a journey that will bring him back to her in the end. I think men can identify with [lead character] Rimini's sentiments: the eagerness to be free of a failed relationship but also the kind of reverence he nurtures for what has just passed.

The movie centers on Rimini and Sofia's sparring over what to do with their old photographs. To her, they mean everything. For him, they seem like a dead weight.