User reviews

This film tells the story of Ana Maria, a fado singer from very humble beginnings, and her boyfriend Júlio. Ana turns out to be famous, and fame brings other love interests and a new life. Directed by Perdigão Queiroga, this film has screenplay by Armando Vieira Pinto and the cast is headed by Amália Rodrigues (as Ana Maria), Virgílio Teixeira (as Júlio), Vasco Santana (as Joaquim Marujo) and António Silva (as Chico Fadista).

This movie, despite being one of the greatest classics of Portuguese cinema, has two very curious features: the first is that the story of main character is almost a biography of the actress who embodies it, the great fado singer Amália Rodrigues, for which the film brought even more fame and success. The second feature is the apology of fado as a kind of "national song". Fado is a music genre originally born in Lisbon's brothels and taverns, where people used to drown his sorrows and sailors forget their loneliness. It's a sad, nostalgic, melancholic music that only in the twentieth century, through government policy and propaganda, went viral in the country. Nonetheless, no one denies the beauty of fado, the depth of its ballads and letters. This film, although its propaganda to an idea that was wrong at that time, deserves place in the heart of the Portuguese because this did happen, over the decades.

For those who haven't ever seen or heard Amália,this film may represent a good presentation of the Portuguese Fado Diva and internationally renowned and famous singer,unanimously considered in her golden years (which expanded from the late 1950s to the mid-70s with a strong revival of interest from the mid-80s until her death in 1999 with an uninterrupted career of 55 years from 1939 to 1994), to be one of the world's best singers alongside Ella Fitzgerald, Piaf and Judy Garland. The movie is loosely inspired in Amália's own life,from rags to riches,and at the same time the nostalgia and melancholy of part of her life, though it is not a biographical movie.Amália was not only a singer but also a consummate actress,who won two best actress awards in her own country,Portugal and refused invitations to work in France and Hollywood in the movies several times, though she sang there to acclaimed success.Surrounding her in the film are some of Portugal's best actors of the 30,40s and 50s,but she remains of course the centerpiece of the movie's action,acting with her straightforward naturalness, her passion and singing several beautiful songs, either Portuguese (fados), or Spanish.It is above all else an opportunity to see Amália when she was already, at the age of 27, a nationally acclaimed figure and her county's paramount artist,and to appreciate her talent as an actress and singer in the still early stages of her professional career, and finally the beauty of her presence and charisma which would be a steady trait in her life and career. A very special introduction to Amália, whose career spanned 55 active years, with decorations numbering in the tenths, from Portugal, Lebanon, France, Spain, Japan, among many other countries.A very special treat!