Spilt Milk

As Eullio Assumpo lies dying in a Brazilian public hospital, his daughter and the attending nurses are treated-whether they like it or not-to his last, rambling monologue. Ribald, hectoring, and occasionally delusional, Eullio reflects on his past, present, and future-on his privileged, plantation-owning family; his father's philandering with beautiful French whores; his own half-hearted career as a weapons dealer; the eventual decline of the family fortune; and his passionate courtship of the wife who would later abandon him. As Eullio wanders the sinuous twists and turns of his own fragmented memories, Buarque conjures up a brilliantly evocative portrait of a man's life and love, set in the broad sweep of vivid Brazilian history.