Cinematic representations of passion usually involve hot color schemes, sweaty images and fiery emotions, symbols of riveting and uncontrollable desire. In his 1981 masterpiece Francisca, a sprawling adaptation of Agustina Bessa-Luís’s novel Fanny Owen—itself based on true events—master filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira devilishly internalizes these melodramatic tropes, draping them in the opulent textures, swirling mustaches, and snooty stubbornness of 1850s high-society Portugal. Its key characters speak of love and lust, but each remains more beholden to the rigorous expectations of social protocols than anything else.
Their repressed emotions are left to stagnate as time passes. Free-spiritedness cannot exist in such a suspended state of ornate equilibrium, and so life becomes nothing more than mechanized routine. Like many of his generation, twenty-something José Agusto (Diogo Dória) has grown up in a state of national volatility, as Portugal transitions from the reign of Dom João VI to a society split between “liberalism and absolutism,...
Their repressed emotions are left to stagnate as time passes. Free-spiritedness cannot exist in such a suspended state of ornate equilibrium, and so life becomes nothing more than mechanized routine. Like many of his generation, twenty-something José Agusto (Diogo Dória) has grown up in a state of national volatility, as Portugal transitions from the reign of Dom João VI to a society split between “liberalism and absolutism,...
- 11/14/2020
- by Glenn Heath Jr.
- The Film Stage
"We were speaking about the infinite, about love and magnetism..." Grasshopper Film has released a new trailer for a 4K restoration of a Portuguese biographical epic called Francisca, from acclaimed filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira. Camilo Castelo Branco, the author of the novel from which Oliveira adapted Doomed Love, also emerged as a character in the director's next film—Francisca—a sinister, absorbing portrait of a mutually destructive love affair. Oliveira's source text for Francisca was a novel by Agustina Bessa-Luís: the book's re-telling of a troubled passage in Camilo's life, his friend José Augusto (Diogo Dória) embarked on a perverse game of marital cat and mouse with Francisca (Teresa Menezes), the woman the novelist loved, led Oliveira to new levels of stylistic and formal imagination. With its elaborate title cards, its abundance of shots in which the action is oriented directly toward the camera, its gloomy interiors, and its show-stopping gala set-pieces,...
- 11/2/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
The opening of “The Domain” is a classic mid-length widescreen shot of a solitary tree silhouetted against the sky. The camera slowly pans left to reveal a second tree, with a man hanging from a branch. This too feels fairly familiar, if disturbing, and one watches imagining that director Tiago Guedes is using such archetypal images to then play with the form, or do something unusual with the subsequent nearly three-hour running time. Instead, his sprawling family epic spanning from 1946 to 1991 largely shifts from the derivative to the banal. Designed like a meaty novel in which Portugal’s political fortunes impact a privileged family of landowners,
Guedes (“Noise”) points to Westerns and some melodramas like Vincente Minnelli’s “Home From the Hill” as major influences, which demonstrably act as templates with added political overtones. Certainly the way the tug-of-war between dictatorship, revolution and capitalism batters the independent-minded Fernandes family does...
Guedes (“Noise”) points to Westerns and some melodramas like Vincente Minnelli’s “Home From the Hill” as major influences, which demonstrably act as templates with added political overtones. Certainly the way the tug-of-war between dictatorship, revolution and capitalism batters the independent-minded Fernandes family does...
- 9/5/2019
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
The ghosts did not take long to present themselves. Oliveira's seventh feature, Visita ou Memórias e Confissões, conveys a bevy of autobiographical musings on his family house and himself. Filmed in 1981 when he was 73, yet shelved voluntarily until after his death, Memories and Confessions has since become a kind of talisman for the director, an n+1 variable where the n is his 31-item back catalogue cut short last year. The first character introduced in the movie is a magnolia that blooms twice a year—first in "a rapid blossoming," then in the shape of "a rare star of maturity." Conveniently, the film's structure comprises just what the original title enumerates: a visit, some memories, a handful of confessions. The visitors in question are a man and a woman whom we do not get to see but whose voices we keep hearing off-screen. As they drop in at an empty house...
- 6/3/2015
- by Boris Nelepo
- MUBI
The 71st Venice Film Festival announced its lineup this morning, highlighted by films from American directors, including David Gordon Green, Barry Levinson, Peter Bogdanovich, Lisa Cholodenko, Andrew Niccol, and James Franco. As had been previously announced, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, starring Michael Keaton and many others, will be the opening film when the festival begins on Aug. 27.
Click below for the entire list of 55 films playing in Venice.
Competition
The Cut, directed by Fatih Akin
Starring Tahar Rahim, Akin Gazi, Simon Abkarian, George Georgiou
A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence, directed by Roy Andersson
Starring Holger Andersson,...
Click below for the entire list of 55 films playing in Venice.
Competition
The Cut, directed by Fatih Akin
Starring Tahar Rahim, Akin Gazi, Simon Abkarian, George Georgiou
A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence, directed by Roy Andersson
Starring Holger Andersson,...
- 7/24/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don't even listen, just wait. Don't even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can't do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you."
—Franz Kafka, "Reflections on Sin, Suffering, Hope, and the True Way."
Above: Director Vítor Gonçalves
Behold the Palace Square in Lisbon—or rather, Praça do Comércio, where the Royal Ribeira Palace stood for nearly two hundred years. In the 18th century, the palace was destroyed by the Great Lisbon Earthquake, never to be restored (instead was built a new one, though, not for the King to live) hence the new name—The Square of Commerce. Here, in the seat of Fascist power, tens of thousands people would gather to listen to Salazar's orations (see Brandos Costumes by Alberto Seixas Santos); then came the Carnation Revolution.
—Franz Kafka, "Reflections on Sin, Suffering, Hope, and the True Way."
Above: Director Vítor Gonçalves
Behold the Palace Square in Lisbon—or rather, Praça do Comércio, where the Royal Ribeira Palace stood for nearly two hundred years. In the 18th century, the palace was destroyed by the Great Lisbon Earthquake, never to be restored (instead was built a new one, though, not for the King to live) hence the new name—The Square of Commerce. Here, in the seat of Fascist power, tens of thousands people would gather to listen to Salazar's orations (see Brandos Costumes by Alberto Seixas Santos); then came the Carnation Revolution.
- 2/24/2014
- by Boris Nelepo
- MUBI
Exclusive: German sales team launches experimental Miguel Gomes drama at Efm.
German outfit The Match Factory has begun talking to buyers at the Efm about Tabu director Miguel Gomes’ latest project Arabian Nights (As 1001 Noites).
Gomes’ film transposes contemporary Portugal - beset by economic crisis - into the structure of the famous collection of folk tales One Thousand and One Nights, also known as Arabian Nights.
Stories within the film will be based on real stories taken from news and press in Portugal during the production period.
The one-year shoot started in early December 2013 and will continue throughout 2014.
The cast includes Adriano Luz, Carloto Cotta, Rogério Samora, Diogo Dória and Crista Alfaiate.
Co-writers include Tabu writer Mariana Ricardo and Tabu editor Telmo Churro. Uncle Boonmee cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom is also on board.
The production has also created an online blog (www.as1001noites.com/en) for the film featuring contributions from Portuguese journalists and illustrators.
O Som...
German outfit The Match Factory has begun talking to buyers at the Efm about Tabu director Miguel Gomes’ latest project Arabian Nights (As 1001 Noites).
Gomes’ film transposes contemporary Portugal - beset by economic crisis - into the structure of the famous collection of folk tales One Thousand and One Nights, also known as Arabian Nights.
Stories within the film will be based on real stories taken from news and press in Portugal during the production period.
The one-year shoot started in early December 2013 and will continue throughout 2014.
The cast includes Adriano Luz, Carloto Cotta, Rogério Samora, Diogo Dória and Crista Alfaiate.
Co-writers include Tabu writer Mariana Ricardo and Tabu editor Telmo Churro. Uncle Boonmee cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom is also on board.
The production has also created an online blog (www.as1001noites.com/en) for the film featuring contributions from Portuguese journalists and illustrators.
O Som...
- 2/9/2014
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
To celebrate the DVD release of Eugène Green's critically-acclaimed drama The Portuguese Nun (2009) - which stars Leonor Baldaque, Francisco Mozos, Diogo Dória and Ana Moreira - on 9 April, the ever-wonderful team at Artificial Eye have kindly provided us with Three DVD copies of the film to give away to our cinema-hungry readers. This is an exclusive competition for our Facebook fans, so if you haven't already, head over to facebook.com/CineVueUK, 'Like' us, and then follow the instructions below.
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- 4/12/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
Thanks to QuietEarth for unearthing the trailer to mystery thriller Cinerama, which hasn't been screened outside of Portugal yet.
Kidnapping and revenge form the main plotlines of Cinerama, including some oblique arthouse moodiness and what can only be described as breathtaking visuals. Starring Sofia Marques, Diogo Dória, Ricardo Aibéo; António Fonseca, Meirinho Mendes, Rita Loureiro, João Cabral and directed and written by Inês Oliveira.
Kidnapping and revenge form the main plotlines of Cinerama, including some oblique arthouse moodiness and what can only be described as breathtaking visuals. Starring Sofia Marques, Diogo Dória, Ricardo Aibéo; António Fonseca, Meirinho Mendes, Rita Loureiro, João Cabral and directed and written by Inês Oliveira.
- 3/27/2010
- by Superheidi
- Planet Fury
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