A Herdade

I had the opportunity to see 'Coisa Ruim' directed by Tiago Guedes a few years ago, but more recently 'Glória' opened again my appetite for more portuguese cinema.

The cinematography, photography, characterization are no longer a surprise with this team, and once again the excellent work at 'Herdade' is proven. Delicious. The images of the Rio Frio domain demonstrate the many wonders that the Alcochete region has to unveil. Beautiful landscapes (images of the plains, the river and its beautiful horizon).

With regard to performances, I have to highlight the great work of Albano Jerónimo (another one), by far the best worked and most profound character.

As a point of improvement and as I had already highlighted in 'Glória', I feel that the actors mostly have monochord performances that end up giving a slow pace to the show.

As a huge cinema fan that I am, I long for more Herdades e Glórias.

Keep the good work.

The Domain (A Herdade) is a movie about a rich landowner that lives in south bank of river Tagus, in the Alentejo region. This movie depicts the portuguese contemporany history from before 25 April Revolution, during the dictatoship government of Marcelo Caetano until 1991 in a democratic time. This movie centers in the character of João Fernandes played by Albano Jeronimo in one of his great performances and his relations with workers and relatives. The photograghy is also very well done with great landscapes, beutifully filmed.

A Film from the sixties in the XXI century. Obvious and endless...

In a country where there is little investment in culture, it is really amazing to see such an amazing portuguese work.

The actrors are impressive, the camera work brilliant and the photography stunning.

There are a lot of smart details that might not be obvious for the mainstream viewer but that I absolutely loved, like the motif of the horse (which decline reflects the familiy one) and that the moonlight in the night sequences always lights the person in power within the scene.

The only downside in my view is that if the viewer is not portuguese, it can have more difficulty understanding the historical context. However, this movie also deals with timeless issues like family, love, freedom and power.

The only good thing about the movie was the photography - great landscapes beautifully filmed. Terrible plot, terrible dialogues. Actors would stop in the middle of a sentence (probably trying to remember what comes next) and they just left it like that, instead of repeating the scene. The topic of the movie could be interesting but it was poorly developed. Smoking all the time, it was ridiculous.