A Mulher que Inventou o Amor

Tiago José Lemos Monteiro, in a work titled A noiva estava de vermelho: horror e sexualidade em "A mulher que inventou o amor", argued that the film embodies the tensions and ambiguities characteristic of the Boca do Lixo universe, "particularly in its attempt to achieve a kind of 'third way' between the exploitation aesthetic that guided most titles from the Boca, and the artistic proposals considered more sophisticated that various filmmakers managed to undertake."^[2] He also stated that, "on the one hand, A mulher que inventou o amor openly appropriates certain stylistic and narrative codes linked to a horrific and melodramatic imaginary; on the other hand, it shows itself willing to challenge these very elements by reframing them from a perspective considerably distinct from that which guided the Boca's more conventional approaches to issues of gender, sexuality, and representation."^[2]

The critic Arthur Tuoto said that "in A Mulher que Inventou o Amor, we do not merely observe the virgin transform into someone thirsty for sex—a path of fetishization typical of the erotic imagination—but rather the deconstruction of a romantic ideal, the reordering of active and passive roles through the subversion of the figure of the woman within that configuration."^[3] He also noted that the film "establishes a very rare balance between its thematic purpose and its properly dramatic relations. Just as the work invokes an aggressive symbolism in its carnal speculations between desire and sex (the butcher who takes the protagonist's virginity, the restaurant where everyone drinks blood), the film articulates a very powerful dimension of melodrama, with scenes of great directness in their emotional and graphic intentions."^[3]

• A Mulher que Inventou o Amor at IMDb