João César Monteiro

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All seems lost. And then, in an old, lonely and icy park two shadowy figures meet: those of Deus and a Messenger from God. The Messenger gives the crook (the temporary state of poor João de Deus) a suitcase stuffed with money. His mission accomplished, the Messenger leaves. João counts the bank notes. The silent waters of a nearby lake are disturbed when a heavy object plunges in. João goes to see what is happening. A young girl (Joana) is drowning. João throws himself into the water and carries the unconscious Joana off to a convent (Capucines?). How Responsible! João de Deus returns to the park to recover the case and its precious contents: happily, nothing has been touched…Read More »

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A poetic journey in the heart of Portugal. They were two. A man and a woman that met and traveled down from the Tras-os-Montes to the sea. Legends and steep and rocks, faces and sounds… In the film, the chant of a country’s history eight century long is passed on.Read More »

Johnny Guitar comes home but God knows where he’s been. He has been wounded in the head though there is no visible injury. An extract of the soundtrack to the film Johnny Guitar has lodged in his brain. It is said that Mr Monteiro, alter ego of John of God, occasionally goes out with Nicholas Ray. At least, they have been seen together.Read More »

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The plot of the film is taken from two traditional Portuguese tales: A donzela que vai a guerra («The maiden who went war» 15th Century?), of Judeo-Iberian origin, and a novella, The dead one’s hand, orally transmitted, which forms part of the Bluebeard cycle.

Dom Rodrigo has two daughters, one legitimate, the other bastard, Silvia and Susana. Growing old, and without male heir, Dom Rodrigo decides to marry off Silvia to his neighbour, a rich nobleman, Dom Paio, with the aim of securing and expanding his domain. After a brief visit from the fiancé, a great glutton and skirt-chaser, Dom Rodrigo leaves for the court to invite the king to the nuptials. Upon his departure, he instructs the girls not to open the doors of the mansion to any stranger.Read More »

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What young Samuel (Dinis Neto Jorge) was doing at that time of night on the deserted quay, nobody will ever know for sure. In fact, when Mr. Eloi (Henrique Canto e Castro), an old retired sailor, approached him, he was staring at the waters of the Tagus. Tired as he was of his days, Mr. Eloi could not have thought any other way: Samuel was there to put an end to his life. And when Samuel, symbolically or not, invites him to share his last dive, Eloi, as a last resort, stops him from throwing himself in the river and, saying that Heaven can wait, takes him on a tour of the city. So the two characters go off for two long nights of roving during the Saint Anthony festivities.Read More »

Part of the Portuguese militant cinema made on the 70s. The title of this documentary (What Will I Do with This Sword?) is a call to anti-imperialist struggle and to the union of the working class.Read More »

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On his first feature, Monteiro analyzes a family: the relationships between father and daughter, husband and wife, and also the relationship between the head of the family and his wife’s parents. The pressure to build a standard family, results in an ominosity transmitted through texts by, among others, James Joyce and André Breton.Read More »

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This bizarre satiric comedy stars writer/director Joao Cesar Monteiro as Joao de Deus, who runs a small ice cream parlor in Portugal. Joao’s employees are mostly teenage girls, and he rigorously drills them in proper procedures and encourages a careful regimen of personal hygiene. But the single and rather lonely Joao has an unusual hobby — he collects women’s pubic hair, saving favorite samples in a scrapbook and claiming to have a few stray hairs from Queen Victoria. Eventually, Joao becomes romantically involved with one of the girls working at his shop, but when that relationship goes south, he finds himself attempting to seduce the 14-year-old daughter of the local butcher, which lands him deep in hot water. A Comedia de Deus was successful enough to inspire a 1999 sequel, As Bodas de Deus. ~ Mark Deming, RoviRead More »

Small film integrated in a series of 3 shortfilms about the adventures of the good old João de Deus.Read More »