1ª Vez 16 mm (2008) User Reviews

You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

[Dockelektro · 1/10 · 5 November 2008]

I was at the premiere of this.... movie (?) in Lisbon. A few hundred people attended. It was shown in the biggest cinema in the city. What to expect, shall I say? Well, I'm sure I wasn't expecting anything this unbelievably poor at all levels. I can assure you, the only thing in this movie that is coherent and seamless is its awfulness. The director, which braves an apparent shyness by putting himself in front of the camera and becoming the least likable leading man ever committed to celluloid, doesn't even know how to handle the non-existent dialogue. It's unbelievable how a person who calls himself an experienced film maker can put together something this poor. It looks like they were trying to make the worst movie ever by going against every single rule of movie making, thus destroying the little aspects that could appeal to the public. I can't stop wondering how on earth they managed too go to Venice and Paris and make both cities look BAD. I can't stop thinking how they managed to get some decent actors and destroy all the appeal that they could possibly add to this mess. My jaw dropped at the god-awful sound editing, with music fading in and out randomly, inexistent cross fades between scenes and incomprehensible dialogue. You can try to convince me that they were trying to make an exercise in deconstruction. To me, a guy that spent two hours (that seemed to go on forever) in that movie theater, it's insulting to call this a movie. Until when will people in this country keep believing that if you point a 35 mm camera to something you are directing a movie? What about narrative, appeal, basic notions of what is film, editing, usage of music and so on? This movie should make you people feel ashamed of yourselves. I understand that you don't have any money. But after watching this, I just KNOW that a kid with a video camera could do much, much better. I don't know what do you expect of this movie's career. I just know that yesterday, people were leaving the room while the film was still going, the audience were roaring their asses off in laughter in a funeral scene, and I had a laughing fit several times during this excruciating experience, while trying to understand what the hell was poor Marisa Paredes doing there. Her baffled face on the last shot on which she appears says everything.

Do you want an advice? Go buy a video camera. At least you have an excuse.

The worst thing ever recorded on film.

[jacquelinedepas · 1/10 · 9 May 2009]

This was the most frightening experience ever inside a movie theater! ANY person knows that, to make a movie, you need to have a story. That was not what I've seen in this piece of terribleness. I was shown, in its premiere, the most stupid, lame, poor and ridiculous demonstration of the total lack of minimal basis needed to storytelling. There weren't even aesthetic notions, sound knowledge, timing, cast directing, planning, general coherence... These were the worst 2 hours spent on my whole life. This director, Rui Goulard, hasn't a slight of genius, or vision or even common sense. He should never be given money again to direct whatever. Because there are lots of Portuguese young people who have talent and don't have the money. And because he keeps on being allowed to make movies - i just can't figure out why, because his films don't even have commercial value, and aren't even exhibited on regular sessions - but it's this continued propagation of crap-producing that allows him, based on his almost anonymous experience, to contact good international actors that he can't even work with. This gives him, without an exchange, the possibility to ask assured subsidiary help from here and there. Just do a favor to Portuguese cinematography legacy - stop doing whatever you think you're doing. my rate is actually 0/10

One of the Best European Films of All Time

[hugomota78 · 10/10 · 27 December 2011]

I saw this movie when it premiered here in Los Angeles and loved all of it. I know the hardness of trying to direct a film without any means because I went to UCLA and I still haven't been able to direct one. The photography is excellent and the music is very appropriate. I would like Criterion to release Rui Goulart's films in America because they should be studied in Film Schools. The actors are very funny and we can see they had a good time doing it, despite the tragic and true story behind it all of the loss of his actor in his first film Em Obsessão whi died from a car accident.

I recommend it to all Cinema fans out there.

a movie within a movie

[tsutz_23 · 9/10 · 4 September 2012]

Excellent, excellent movie. As a cinema enthusiast, i must say that this movie was one of the best ones i've seen and adding the fact that the means available were quite short, i think this movie is a awesome example of what can be done with less money. This film made me laugh (it has an excellent sense of humor) and proved the value of the Portuguese cinema. "1 vez 16 mm" is a story about a team of young directors that have no money to do their own production. It is a movie marked by a very individual and personal view of the director, which is also great; the plans shot were just marvelous and the way they were explored are simply genius. A funny and serious film, at the same time. It's too bad that some cinema lovers, as they consider themselves, can't understand such a brilliant movie - one of my favorites movies ever!!!

Good Review From People Who Understand Movies

[CrazyPython · 10/10 · 23 December 2011]

It's a shame people who don't understand movies be allowed to write reviews like these. People who are used to go and watch commercial Schwarzenegger and Van Damme pictures at multiplexes and eat pop corns and drink Cola when they don't have nothing better to do or when they want to get it on with their girlfriends and they don't even know how to write English properly.

Cinema isn't just explosions and bombs and girls with big tits playing the cute little duckies who turn into swans and quick cut action flicks with Bruce Willis. Cinema is also art and beauty. In a world of fast-food trash movies Rui Goulart's work is to be admired from an artist's point of view. The shots are made with great insight of his soul and Venice is very well portrayed here as a dream city where his character Miguel wanders off to seek inspiration. If this film was so bad it wouldn't have been presented in São Paulo's Film Festival in Brazil and it wouldn't be the first Portuguese film to premiere in the United States of America and it wouldn't have been announced so many times by the great Portuguese critic Marcelo Rebelo De Sousa in TVI.

People don't know crap about European cinema. Manoel De Oliveira who is the oldest film director alive and makes boring movies that nobody sees is allowed to shoot with patronage from the Portuguese Government but all the other filmmakers have to survive with money from other places. Mainly their family's.

Vitorino d'Almeida is a great Portuguese music conductor and composer. He has always worked with Goulart since his first movie Em Obssessão. If he wasn't pleased with his work I don't think he would ever be involved in it again. Nevertheless he and João d'Ávila - a great Portuguese actor - keep being cast in Rui Goulart's films. I loved the movie and I identify a lot with his character. Doing movies is easy if you have a camera and people and a story. Selling it and distributing it is the hard part if nobody wants to see it. I wish you folks out there who like Fellini and Jacques Tati to give this movie a chance.