Manoel de Oliveira

  • Manoel de Oliveira – Vale Abraão AKA Abraham’s Valley (1993)

    Manoel de Oliveira1991-2000ArthouseDramaPortugal

    Quote:
    In this artful film by 85-year old director Manoel de Oliveira, the heroine, instead of being powerless in the face of a world ruled by men, finds herself to be far too powerful. Beginning when she was a child, Ema (Leonor Silveira as an adult) had the kind of looks and manner that could stop cars when she came up to a street — or cause accidents. As time goes by, she explores her power over men and, as a mature woman, chooses to marry a man who has virtually no machismo so that she can continue having affairs and exploring this mysterious ability of hers. Eventually she seeks to transcend her unusual limitation and accomplishes her death with astonishing serenity. This haunting story is based on a novel by Agustina Bessa-Luis.Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – Je rentre à la maison AKA I’m Going Home (2001)

    Manoel de Oliveira2001-2010DramaFrance
    Je rentre à la maison (2001)
    Je rentre à la maison (2001)

    Quote:
    I’m Going Home (French: Je rentre à la maison, Portuguese: Vou Para Casa) is a 2001 French-Portuguese film written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.

    Gilbert Valence (Michel Piccoli) is a grand old theatre actor who receives the shocking news that his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been killed in a car accident. As time passes, Valence busies himself with his daily life in Paris, turning down unsuitable roles in low-brow television productions and looking after his 9-year-old grandson. When an American filmmaker (John Malkovich) miscasts him in an ill-conceived adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Valence finds himself compelled to make a decision about his life.Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – Inquietude aka Anxiety (1998)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaManoel de OliveiraPortugal

    Quote:
    Inquietude, also known as Anxiety, is a movie in three parts; a one-act play, a short story, and a fable, bringing them all together brilliantly. It may seem talky at first, but there is some genuine thought going on behind the talk, and some of the images are gorgeous.Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – La lettre AKA A Carta (1999)

    1991-2000ArthouseFranceManoel de OliveiraRomance

    Quote:
    A well-bred, lovely, spiritual, sad young woman marries an attentive physician who loves her. She feels affection but no love. Soon after, without design, she falls in love with Pedro Abrunhosa, a poet and performance artist. He also loves her. She keeps her distance from him, confessing her love to a friend who is a nun and, later, to her husband. Hunger for her love and jealousy consume him; she attends him as he wastes away. With his death, she can marry and express her passion, but what she does and how she explains herself, particularly to her cloistered friend, is at the heart of the film. Glimpses of convent life and of Abrunhosa on stage give contrast and mute comment.Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – O Convento AKA The Convent (1995)

    Manoel de Oliveira1991-2000ArthouseDramaPortugal

    Quote:
    The story centers on the unconventional American professor, Michael Padovic, and his stunningly beautiful wife, Helene, who journey to an eerie Portuguese convent to prove that Shakespeare was, in reality, a Jewish Spaniard. They journey to the spooky old convent of Arrabida where they are housed by the sophisticated, but rather creepy guardian of the monastery, Baltar, who immediately seems attracted to Helene. In order to spend more time with her, Baltar arranges for Michael to spend all his time in the convent’s great library; he is assisted by a beautiful young librarian. It is the wicked Baltar who tries to tempt Michael (in the way that Mephistopheles tempted Faust) into becoming immortal through his research and writing.Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – Porto da Minha Infância AKA Porto of My Childhood (2001)

    2001-2010ArthouseDocumentaryManoel de OliveiraPortugal

    Quote:
    This Proustian documentary, made when Oliveira was 93 years old, explores the great Portuguese film-maker’s relationship with his home town, Oporto, the place which inspired his first film Douro, Faina Fluvial way back in 1931. Using old photographs and newsreels with dramatic reconstructions, he offers a vivid portrait of a city caught between the old and the new. When he was a child, Oporto didn’t even have proper cinemas, film shows were improvised in sheds, Oliveira (born 1908) recalls. Most of the landmarks familiar from his youth have vanished. The brothels and cafés where he and his artist friends used to while away their days are long since closed. Even the house where he grew up is in ruins. The city I remember only remains alive in my sad memory, he sadly reflects. Poignant and playful, this is one of the old master’s most accessible late films.Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – Amor de Perdição AKA Doomed Love (1979)

    1971-1980ArthouseManoel de OliveiraPortugalRomance

    Quote:
    Made by Manoel de Oliveira, the Portuguese cinema’s leading figure, Amor de Perição is undoubtedly one of the most original films made in the last decade, but its riches are difficult to capture in a few sentences. Based on a famous novel by Camilo Castelo Branco, it centers on several love affairs, notably between the offspring of antagonistic noble families, and shows how social and moral laws conspire to defeat the lovers.Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – O Dia do Desespero AKA The Day of Despair (1992)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaManoel de OliveiraPortugal

    Quote:
    In 1992 Oliveira made O Dia do Desespero, which deals with the last days and suicide of Romantic novelist Camilo Castelo Branco and is based largely on the writer’s letters. Most of it was filmed in the house where Castelo Branco in fact committed suicide. The film opens, midway through the credits, with a 50-second static shot of a pen-and-ink portrait of the writer. Other portraits, always shot with a static camera, punctuate the film’s narrative, lending it a documentary tone from the outset.Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – A Caixa aka Blind Man’s Bluff (1994)

    1991-2000ComedyDramaManoel de OliveiraPortugal

    Quote:
    One of Manoel de Oliveira’s masterpieces, A Caixa (The Box) / Blind Man’s Bluff is an adaptation, in parable form, of a play of the same name by Prista Monteiro.
    The action takes place around a flight of steps in a poor neighbourhood and is about the final misadventure of an old Blind Man who has yet again been robbed of the official alms box with which he earns is living. His daughter, besides doing the house work, wears herself out taking in washing. Her companion, an unemployed lay-about like many of his friends, lives off the Blind Man’s box which has just been stolen for the second time.Read More »

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