Change Your Image
Santosguito
Reviews
Bocage (2006)
Shame about the acting
Bocage was a Portuguese poet, contemporary and sympathizer of the French Revolution but in a deeply conservative, catholic and royalist country. Like Camões, another great Portuguese poet, his fame rose not only from his considerable talent, but also by dieing just before his country got overrun by a foreign power, earning him a status of national symbol.
Not much details are known about Bocage's biography, and that's where this work of historical fiction gets interesting, presenting a version of what could have happened in the last 15 years of his life.
Although at times a gross oversimplification of the end of the 18th century reality in Portugal, the plot remains entertaining and educational enough - portraying the bohemian, cultural, political and social life of the time in Lisbon.
Unfortunately, the acting is quite bad, with Miguel Guilherme (Bocage) and Manuel João Vieira (Agostinho Macedo) possibly providing the worse performances in the series.
The locations, costumes and characterization are very good at creating a 1790s setting. Overall, an interesting series, I only wish that the acting would have been better.
Mirandês - A Outra Língua (2008)
The other language of Portugal
This is an excellent opportunity for all linguists and Iberian-language speakers to get to know the other official language of Portugal - together with Portuguese - the Mirandese (from the region of Miranda do Douro).
After almost having disappeared from the world and still in risk of extinction, Mirandês is being revived by campaigns from local politicians with the help of the local population, and now it has school classes to pass on this heritage to their children and also it's own bards - a Mirandese rock band.
All in all, a good documentary piece of yet another forgotten European language, as langue d'oc and many others, and always a curious oddity to get to know.
O Descobrimento do Brasil (1936)
Brazil - the movie
No great performances required, no rich plot written, this is a simple and unpretentious reenactment of Pêro Vaz de Caminha's letter to king D. Manuel I of Portugal.
Pêro Vaz de Caminha was the senior scribe of the Portuguese armada of Pedro Álvares de Cabral that officially discovered Brazil in 1500, and this letter marks the beginning of the current country Brazil, founded on Portuguese colonization. Just for that reason this is an interesting enough film to anyone interested in world history.
The somewhat hammy acting is interspersed with text separators, but hey!, these were the 30's, cinema everywhere was still getting used to the 'talkies' and still had too much of the 20's influence to be really good. The Portuguese sailors' anguish on their long months at sea, the portrait of the native Brazilians, and the contact between the two civilizations are moving and funny enough because of the innocence with which they were acted.
All in all, good piece of entertaining, a classic of Brazilian cinema and a worthy theme. And it could kinda be considered a great-grandfather of Ridley Scott's 1492.
O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra (2007)
Fiction and reality mix
"O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra" was the first crime thriller written in Portuguese, by Eça de Queirós and Ramalho Ortigão in the 1870s. This movie picks up that plot, and adds Eça and Ramalho's real lives, together with the real lives of the people they based their novel on. Although fictionalized, the whole movie has a feeling of reality to it and is a nice epoch reconstruction.
Ramalho is kidnapped at night and demanded to medically tend to an Englishman shot in a Portuguese noble manor. From then on, the plot splits between Ramalho and Eça writing a fictionalized account of this incident and the events leading to it; and coincidentally the writers' fiction ends up being very near to what really happened with Rytmel and the Valadas family. Both worlds end up mixing, and in the end we don't know if the whole thing has really happened.
Good plot and direction, good or at least passable acting for most of the main cast (the rest are a bit wooden), a period piece and a story by Eça and Ramalho make this unmissable, even if it is not a cinema masterpiece.
Um Tiro no Escuro (2005)
Watch out for the plot twist!
Good movie with a dual story line about a gang of bank robbers and the police detectives pursuing them:
In Rio de Janeiro airport, Verônica's daughter was kidnapped by a Portuguese stewardess. Verônica moves to Portugal and spends the days in Lisbon airport trying to find the stewardess and her lost child. By night she finds illegal employment as a stripper.
Brocas just got out of jail and wastes no time in reacquainting himself with Metralha and a life of crime. They end up enlisting the help of Brocas' brother Engenheiro, and then also the love interest of Engenheiro, Verônica, and go out on a bank robbing spree.
To complete the main cast, Rafael and Filipa are the investigating officers in charge of capturing the criminals. But Rafael, the senior detective, has a dark secret...
Half of the cast is quite wooden and the other half is quite good - especially look out for more movies with Ivo Canelas, he is generally a few notches above almost all of his co-stars. The directing is nice and unobtrusive; the plot is unpretentious and entertaining, and although not mind-blowing, it has a very nice plot twist near the end. Kudos for the screenwriter for that one.
Overall, the movie has good entertaining value. I recommend this one to spend an hour and a half with Portuguese cinema.
Ainda Há Pastores? (2006)
Their life
This is an excellent documentary about the lives of the last shepherds of Serra da Estrela, a ridge of mountains in central Portugal. Their life is hard and almost the same as their forefathers, with little of the comforts of modern life. And it is because of this that young people turn their backs to this life with no future and the region is being depopulated.
The documentary piece is excellently done, not emitting a single judgment about this way of life and its disappearance. The camera and the narration just show us what it the reporter sees - the way these people live. Highly recommended in these times when we are so obsessed with a life in communion with nature.
Floripes (2005)
Enchanted Moor
This is a great docudrama about the legends of Floripes, an enchanted moor of Olhão, in the Algarve. Enchanted moors are one of the cornerstones of Portuguese mythology, they are often seductive and temptresses, foreigners that can offer a powerful reward, but also a terrible curse.
Left in Portugal during the Reconquista while her family went back to North Africa, beautiful Floripes was condemned to roam her ancient kingdom in the Algarve until a man could undo her curse. Then she would marry him and give him her fabulous treasure. But if the man fails, she must eat his heart.
Along with the staging of alleged contacts from the fishermen of Olhão with Floripes, we are treated with interviews with the locals - what they know about the legends, do they fear her, do they desire her, do they believe in her? This results in a very fascinating social documentary about the psychology of the locals.
Not to be missed if you like the supernatural or local folklore, and especially if you are visiting the Algarve, particularly Olhão.
O Lampião da Estrela (2000)
Remake curse
An unsuccessful football manager tries to impress an aristocratic, successful one, with the objective of selling him the passes of two unpromising African players. At the same time, their wives get bored out of their skulls and their children get romantically involved. Hilarity ensues? No, not really, but there are worse ways to lose 1 1/2 hours of one's life.
This is a remake of the classic 1947 movie "O Leão da Estrela" but with a twist only discernible to Portuguese viewers: "O Leão" is a Sporting Clube de Portugal supporter and "O Lampião" is a Sport Lisboa e Benfica supporter (Benfica and Sporting being two of the major Portuguese football/soccer teams).
Other minor differences include a general updating of the football scene from the mid forties to more recent years, the main character being a football manager, as opposed to just a supporter in the '47 version, and the inclusion of a new subplot about a team of security guards.
The plot is not original or especially funny, the acting is adequate for a light comedy about football, although subpar. Even Herman José, the star of this movie and one of the greatest comedians in the history of Portuguese television, is mostly uninspired, well below his other works as "O Tal Canal" and "Herman Enciclopédia".
In short, this suffers from the remake curse: if you want to see a good comedy with the same general themes, try the original "O Leão da Estrela" instead.
Quem És Tu? (2001)
Good production, over-theatrical
Faithful to the original theatrical play "Frei Luís de Sousa" by Almeida Garrett, the production is accurate to XVI century Portugal. Especially noteworthy are the costumes and settings.
The acting suffers from being over-theatrical. Even making allowances for the über-tragedy that is "Frei Luís de Sousa", the actors fall into every vice learned at the theater and seem to forget that they changed the medium to film.
With way too much "ooooooh, misfortune!, oooooooooooooh, the tragedy!, ooooooooooooooooh", this ends up being just an overacted filmed play. That being said, it is still worth it for history and classic theater buffs.
Inês de Portugal (1997)
The great historical drama of Portugal
The story of Inês de Castro is the stuff of legends, similar to the great tragedies of ancient Greece, but this one really happened: D. Pedro of Portugal was the heir to his father's throne when he fell in love with D. Inês, a Galician noble. Their adulterous relation could have had little political consequence, had D. Pedro's legitimate wife not died in childbirth.
Meanwhile, Pedro had a couple of children with Inês. His father the king feared the influence of Inês's brothers with his son, the future king of Portugal. The life of his grandson Fernando, the legitimate heir of D. Pedro by the previous marriage, could also be at risk - the Castro family would surely welcome the rise of a son by Inês to heir of the prince Pedro, and this could happen if the child Fernando happened to die. To stem the menace, the king ordered the death of Inês.
Grief-struck, Pedro rebelled against his father. Two years later the old king died and Pedro rose to the throne. His first actions were of revenge against the three killers of Inês - he captured two, which he subjected to a grisly torture and death. Later, allegedly half-maddened by the death of his beloved, he exhumed and crowned the dead body of Inês as queen of Portugal.
The historical/legendary story has a lot of potential for a great movie. Unfortunately, this production fails to deliver. The acting is wooden and the script is slow and sometimes stale. It is still worth checking out if you are an history buff, but I don't know if the DVD comes with subtitles or a dubbing track in any other language - the original language is Portuguese.
Duarte & C.a (1985)
Low budget detective comedy from the 80's
Duarte & C.ª follows the misadventures of a small detective agency in Lisbon. Intrepid Duarte is the detective, Tó his sidekick and Joaninha the secretary with a mean punch. Actually, the villains are no match for the women in the series - including Duarte's wife and mother-in-law - and invariably get the crap beaten out of them.
Main villains include Lúcio Ferreira (Lúcifer), who desperately wants to belong to a Mafia franchise in Portugal; demented Átila with the maniacal laugh, my personal favorite back in '85; also not to forget their inept and colorful henchmen - big ugly Rocha, politically incorrect Chinês (always whining that he is in fact Japanese), and many others.
The series in politically incorrect, as one would expect from the 80's (remember British 'Allo 'Allo?) but that is also part of it's charm, as is the overall "Ed Wood-ian" feel - bad acting, low budget, no FX, but clearly all had great fun filming it and we had great fun watching it.
But don't take my word for it. Rent it, buy it, watch it and see for yourselves. Is there a subtitled DVD to take Duarte & C.ª to a non-Portuguese audience? If not, RTP should consider the idea. Portuguese and English subtitles should be enough, other main languages would be added value.
Balas & Bolinhos (2001)
Über-amateurism and not in a funny way
Godawful movie, even for amateurs.
Story about a group of inept criminals trying to do the job of their lives. Swearing is expected, no problems there, but would it hurt to write a good story before trying to film it?
The problems have nothing to do with the very small budget - it's just that the story and the acting are absolutely childish. If you enjoy badly acted predictable humor based on a stereotype of human misery, go for it.
Don't waste your time if you are searching for an alternative intelligent funny movie.
Gente Fina É Outra Coisa (1982)
Portuguese nobility without a dime
Brilliant sitcom about a Portuguese noble family that faces economic ruin. To survive, they rent rooms in their old and decayed family manor to tourists, while trying to conceal the fact from the elderly lady of the manor - brilliantly played by Amélia Rey Colaço. Ruy de Carvalho is unforgettable playing her son, a demented war hero-wannabe that can be frequently be found fantasy-fighting in his airplane simulator.
Although by today's standards the comedy may be a bit outdated, it is still good fun and will bring back memories of some iconic actors of Portuguese television and theater. Not to be missed if you understand the language, and especially if you are Portuguese.