Mysteries of Lisbon (Friday, August 5, 2011) (64)

Filmmakers, perhaps more than any other artists, have always been fascinated by point-of-view and the internal narrative structure of a story. There are probably many reasons for this, but it has a lot to do with the fact that film is a multi-media, multi-sensory format where things like the camera's angle, what is seen and what is unseen, who the narrator is and at what point in the story is he or she sitting all affect the audience's view of something. In literature there are certainly issues of a narrator's voice (first person, third person) and if any of the characters in the story are telling the tale, but I don't think this element is as interesting or as deep.

Raoul Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon is a long movie to be sure, at a staggering 272-minutes, but it's rich and filled with an interesting investigation of point-of-view and of stories within stories. He takes cues from Kubrick, Sokurov and Bergman and turns out one of the best films of the year.

The gigantic tale, adapted by Carlos Saboga from a book by Camilo Castelo Branco, mostly revolves around Pedro da Silva, a boy who lives in a Church school when the film opens in mid-19th-century Lisbon. He does not know who is parents are and is ostracized by the other kids because of this. It is soon revealed that he is the out-of-wedlock child of a noblewoman and her lover and was protected by the head priest, Padre Dinis (Adriano Luz), when he was born. Now his mother is back in his life and Padre Dinis is going to give him the story of his birth and his parents' romance.

From this point forward we see a tremendous story along the lines of Dickens, Hugo or Thackeray that investigates the histories of every person in Pedro da Silva's family, and many of his family members' associates. This is a story of discovery for the boy, for Padre Dinis and for us as they delve into the baroque complexity of his parentage and his life.

In one of the first scenes, Pedro's mother gives him a cardboard proscenium frame for cut-out puppets - a clear homage to the toy that Alexander played with in the opening shot of Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. Our first thought is of all the themes from that film: the questioning of faith, the loss of faith, death, humiliation, anger at parents, reconciliation, magic and imagination. This is a powerful symbol and an efficient way of bringing up these ideas that we come back to later in the story.

This proscenium also serves to show us that the story is just a story and that we will be experiencing it through the eyes of several characters; the frame of the cardboard stage lets us know that we will be seeing a story from many different frames of reference told by many different people. Throughout the film we see sequences set up by having the characters appear in cardboard cut-out-form inside that proscenium, underlining the fictional, manufactured elements of the story. Right away there is an idea that there is no absolute truth that exists in this world, but that all history is relative, complicate to understand and somehow unnatural or fake.

From here we see and hear stories told by different characters, like Padre Dinis, some of whom tell stories within stories (and some stories within stories, within stories) about different characters and their backgrounds. We find out that basically everyone has a complicated past where they had a different identity (and some will have different identities in the future). We see how small decisions at one point will affect many points down the road, but then when you go back to retrace the steps, understanding becomes difficult.

This richness we find is not only visible in the storytelling, but also in the amazing direction by Ruiz and his brilliant composition of the frame and choreography of movements within it. He brilliantly uses short and long lenses to gain depth of field or focus on small elements, he frequently stages gorgeous static moments when characters are seen in the frame in beautiful correspondence with the others. Scenes where there is movement, like the requisite dance scenes in period pictures (there's always got to be at least one, doesn't there?), are full of people and textures, decorations and objects - a total delight for the eyes (an very reminiscent of Sukurov's Russian Ark).

Big productions are always complicated to make and open their directors to tremendous criticism (James Cameron for Avatar) or praise (Olivier Assayas for Carlos), much of which stems from the sheer size of the work (they're too long, too complicated, hard to follow, amazing in their detail, such a big and wonderful story). This film, originally made for Portuguese television where it played as a six-part miniseries, is just about the grandest thing you'll see this year, but it is also an incredibly dynamic story with a gripping plot filled with intrigue and masterful visual artistry. It's rare to see a movie of this length where the artistic elements are as compelling as the story (Assayas, for instance, didn't use much style or creativity in his presentation of Carlos - the story was really the most important element for him).

Despite its length, I strongly recommend sitting through the whole picture (it's shown in two parts and one could easily see each part on a different sitting). The scope of the story from beginning to end is amazing and beautiful and it's wonderful to see how each character deals with his or her own story, considering they are each living in their own subjective worlds seeing life through their own prosceniums.

Stars: 4 of 4

The Strange Case of Angelica (Wednesday, December 29, 2010) (166)

So, how many movies did you make last year? None? Oh, well, Manoel de Oliveira who just turned 102 made two movies. You suck, you lazy-ass loser!

Following on the heels of The Eccentricities of a Blond-Haired Girl, Oliveira comes back with The Strange Case of Angelica, a similarly magical, lyrical and lovely tale of love and loss. It is very similar to Eccentricities in its style and format, it also feels like a film version of a short story (though not as short as the former), and also stars leading man Ricardo Trepa.

He plays Isaac, a Jewish man with no traditional roots in a small coastal town. One night he's asked to visit the house of the village's wealthiest family and photograph their recently deceased twenty-something daughter. The moment he sees her in her death bad, he falls in love with her. When he takes her picture, he imagines she's looking right at him and smiling. He becomes obsessed with her and can't concentrate on his work without thinking of her. All he wants to do is spend eternity with her, but, of course, she's dead and he's living, so there are some basic problems with that idea.

The film is lovely and poetic in an unusually dramatic and beautiful way. Oliveira seems to have made a film that feels more 1920s than 2010s. He uses almost only static shots, perfectly composed and amazingly full of interest in life. Some shots go on for 10 or more minutes, most have action pass in front of them and tension arises when we don't know what is coming in front of the lens next. He does occasionally tilt the camera or crane it up, but these shots are few and far between. It feels like an UFA picture from before the sound era. Add a bit of wonderful color and you have almost the same film.

Oliveira also uses music in a wonderful way, with most of the score as a solo pianist playing mournful and sentimental tunes. The sounds work wonderfully as Isaac sadly suffers without the love of Angelica. Oliveira also uses traditional workman songs to break up the tone a bit. They give a wonderful texture to what we see on screen.

This feels to me to be a chicken and hare situation. Oliveira is clearly well established (he made his first film in 1931) and it seems like he's not running, but slowly walking here. He knows how to make an excellent movie; he's seen all the tricks and knows them well. He doesn't do anything flashy (other than some silly ghosty double exposure stuff), but he does it right and does it well.

I am very interested in the idea that this and Eccentricities are supposed to be viewed together or in close succession. That film dealt with the capriciousness of love and the fickleness of lovers. This film deals with the eternality of love and the deep, strong attachments people have to it - even if totally constructed in their heads.

I also wonder if Isaac in this film is Oliveira himself. The character is a man obsessed by photographic images of his lover. In the winter of his life (easy for me to say... he could live another 20 years at this rate), the director could be a man looking back at the photographs he's taken, having fallen in love with them. I think it is clearly significant that the man is a photographer.

I like how it is the same actor in both films and that he plays a different, but not totally dissimilar, characters in each. In Eccentricities he was a man shackled to his family and the role he was supposed to play in the greater story of his genetic line. Here he is an outsider (a Jew) who is somewhat not tied down by the heavy burden of local expectations. He is a total free agent without any duty. I think together the two films show us two sides of the same coin. Love can be fast and thoughtless and hard to figure out, or it can be deep and unwavering and without borders.

Stars: 3.5 of 4

The Eccentricities of a Blond-Haired Girl (Thursday, September 30, 2010) (125)

Manoel de Oliviera made The Eccentricities of a Blond-Haired Girl when he was 100-years old (he's now 102). He started making movies in the 1930s in the silent era and is still working today. None of this really really means anything significant, but it's impressive as hell - especially considering how good a movie this is.


More than anything, this is a visual pleasure to behold. Oliviera's use of color, texture and scale is absolutely masterful, making this one of the most beautiful works I've seen in a long time. Based on a short story by Jose Maria de Eca de Queiroz, the 19th Century Portuguese novelist, this movie basically plays like a short story at only 64 minutes long. And like a good short story the economical use of dialogue, explication, detail and atmosphere is the key here.


Macario is a young accountant who works in his uncle's fabric store. At work above the shop one day he looks out the window and sees a girl in the window facing him across the street, Luisa, keeping cool by waving a fan on herself. At first he notices the fan, but then he notices the girl. She's only a few years younger than he is and is absolutely gorgeous. Immediately he falls in love with her.


After meeting her and meeting her family, he wants to ask her to marry him, but his traditional uncle doesn't want her to distract him from his work. The very conservative man feels that it is inappropriate for the two to date and also worries that he is not very good at his work and throwing a woman into his life might make him make more mistakes. He must prove to his uncle and to Luisa's family that he is a good, honest man who can take care of himself financially and use good judgment.


One thing that is a bit surprising about the film, but something that I really liked, is that the story is basically not updated at all from the old-fashionedness of the short story. We basically are watching a 19th Century story played out in modern times. The very mannered acting and dialogue underlines this point and shows how that much has changed in the world in the past 200 years, still some similar things remain.


There is a gorgeous quality to the photography here (by Sabine Lancelin) that has incredibly rich colors in each and ever shot - turning each set-up into a beautiful painting. This is not super intense colors, like you might find in a Fassbinder film, but rather single bold colors that fit in naturally to the other tones of a room or landscape. In some cases it's just a simple yellow curtain by the window in the corner, in other cases, it's the pinkish tone of a building exterior.


It seems like as much time went into showing amazing textures to us as well. One of my favorite elements in the film is the nearly-tactile travertine frame around the window that Luisa stands in. This beautiful texture meshes amazingly with the plaster wall of the building that surrounds it. Making this whole set-up even more wonderful size of the window (almost bigger than human-sized) and the frame the window creates within the overall shot. It's a simple thing, but it's absolutely gorgeous. If this were a painting in a museum it would be a masterpiece.


There is an interesting element of memory and idealization in this film that is very important. We see many wide-angle shots with incredibly deep focus. This reminds us of how deep memories go and how for Macario beautiful things (beautiful girls) can be idealized and remain perfect forever.


I appreciate how small and gentle this film is. It is technically tremendous but also has a beautiful, simple story as well.


Stars: 4 of 4