A Talking Picture

This movie had elements I really liked but it looked like three different films thrown together. I really wish the writer and director had focused on one of them instead of making, what seemed like, three different movies.

The first portion is like a travelogue where a nice Portuguese history teacher takes her cute young daughter to see the sites in Egypt, Athens, and other ancient locales. This wasn't especially exciting, but the acting and style of these visits made them oddly compelling and sweet.

Then, abruptly, the scene switches to a table across from the mother and daughter on the ship. At the table are three famous and successful European women and the captain, John Malkovich. All speak their respective languages (Greek, Italian, English and French) but seem to understand each other. Their conversations, to me, seem rather philosophical and lack any real depth--as the characters talk about grand ideas but give little information about themselves. It reminded me a lot of the sort of conversations you might have heard in the French salons of the mid 18th century--interesting but after a while rather bland.

The third movie VERY VERY abruptly begins after the Portuguese lady and her daughter join the others at the captain's table. Within minutes, the boat is blown up by terrorists. All, but possibly the Portuguese lady and her kid, survive--what an abrupt and unnecessary downer! Overall, the acting is pretty good (though Malkovich doesn't seem at all like a real ship's captain) and the story has excellent PIECES--but the whole just isn't much fun to watch. I do understand that the film deliberately juxtaposes the mother/child and ancient civilizations (symbolizing the heights of civilization)with the Nihilistic terrorist attack. I understand, but don't particularly like this contrast.

In A Talking Picture, 96-year-old Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira takes us on a journey through history, making us acutely aware of our heritage and, in the process, conveying an acute sense of what we have lost and what we have become. Part travelogue, part comedy, and part drama, the film lulls us into a state of blissful contentment, then hits us with a wake up call that seems culled from yesterday's headlines. On the surface, Oliveira's 36th film is simple, but its greatness lies in the subtlety of its undercurrents. As we travel on a cruise ship to visit some of the most historic landmarks on the planet, bathe in the warmth of the Mediterranean sun, and meet some interesting people along the way, Oliveira brings into sharp focus the treacherous nature of the journey in which we are embarked.

Set in July 2001, an attractive history professor from the University of Lisbon, Rosa Maria (Leonor Silveira), takes her seven-year-old daughter Maria Joana (Filipa de Almeida) on a cruise of the Mediterranean from Portugal to Bombay, India where she is planning to meet her husband, an airline pilot. The ship travels from west to east, symbolically depicting the direction in which the balance of the world is shifting. Along the way, they visit the Acropolis and the Parthenon, Mt. Vesuvius and the ruins of Pompeii, the Sphinx and the Pyramids, and the Hagia Sophia, among others. Rosa Maria, who has lectured about the sites but never visited them before, explains the various sites to her attentive and inquisitive daughter who is constantly asking questions.

The little girl asks questions such as "What is a myth?", "Was there really such a Goddess?", "What is a legend?", "What did people do here?". Her mother does her best to interpret history and myth for her daughter telling her stories about Prince Henry and the legendary Portuguese King Sebastian, the mermaids who swam alongside ships to encourage the sailors to explore the unknown, and the muse that inspired poets. She tells her about the Temple of Apollo and the statue of Athena that protected the city and the stories that accompanied the destruction of Pompeii. Like Maria Joana we are mesmerized by what we see, yet each scene is tinged with such a pervasive air of sadness that it seems to suggest we are getting one last look.

The only transition from port to port is the often-repeated view of the prow of the ship slicing through the calm waters. Along the way, the two meet solitary travelers: an old fisherman in Marseilles whose wife died and whose children moved away, a celibate Orthodox priest at the Acropolis, and an older unmarried actor in Egypt. Rosa and her daughter are the only family with children seen in the film. The second part of the film consists mainly of a dinner conversation between the ship's captain John Walesa (John Malkovich), an American of Polish background and three celebrity passengers: Delphine, a French businesswoman (Catherine Deneuve), Francesca, a former Italian model (Stefania Sandrelli) and Helena, a Greek singer (Irene Papas). In "My Dinner With John", the women discuss their personal lives as well as their views on history, art, politics, and civilization and we are treated to a lovely Greek song sung by Irene Papas.

Each talk in his or her own language yet everyone seems to understand each other perfectly. Soon the suave captain invites the professor and her daughter to join the dinner group and gives the little girl a gift of a Muslim doll with a veil over her face, making us aware of who has not been invited to the table. From here, the film veers in an unpredictable direction that seems inevitable only upon repeated viewing. The camera is static throughout and since the film is driven by ideas rather than story line or character development, the journey at times can be a bit tiresome. Yet A Talking Picture is a lovely film filled with moments of beauty and grace. Like the passage of our own life, it is the totality of the experience that is important, an experience that can only be reflected upon from a distance and weighed in the context of the events that are transforming the civilization and culture we once thought would never change.

This movie isn't going to shock you. This movie is not going to "entertain" you. This movie is going to softly talk to you, while cruising around the most beautiful places of the world, and will bring you to a sudden, explosive, unexpected ending. I never saw a De Oliveira movie before this, although he is considered by Italian critics one of the most important directors alive. Well i guess i should check his previous works (and there's a lot to see). This is a film for those who want to FEEL the script and listen to interesting conversations that sometimes can enlighten and other times, well, the viewer can feel the deep depression of a reality that gives us no choice but live as we are, no hope to leave our little selves to come to something bigger. And then again, who wouldn't want to sit and have dinner talking with Stefania Sandrelli, Catherine Deneuve, Irene Papas and a charming Captain Malkovich? (And the fact that they're all speaking in their own languages makes their pout pourri of philosophy and humour really UNIVERSAL). This filmed talked to me, while i could do nothing but sit still and wait and listen and watch and then give one of the most sincere applauses i ever could give to a movie. "You'd better grab a hold of something, it's simple but is true. If you dont stop to smell the roses now they might end up on you!" (HUSKER DU)

I guess everyone has a right to his/her own opinion, and so the commentator(sp?) above. This is not an action movie, not based on any real underlaying "physical" story. But i liked it because it's kind of motionless, but has a sense of meaning to it - like you'll kind of know, there's someone intelligent behind it, and it's not necessarily driving an agenda down your throat. It's like spending time with a good friend (or wife, if you have the one your supposed to have), when you don't really have to do or say anything. This movie is something like that.

(Liking or disliking this does not say anything about your intelligence; you like it or not, and that's the end of it. I enjoyed it.)

This is another Great film of 97year old Portuguese director Manoel De Oliveira (a legend!). It's incredible how this director still creative is... His stories are simple and deep. He demonstrates that with a low budget you can always do strong films, with good lines.

A mother takes her daughter to a cruise trip through Mediterranean Sea. She teaches her story and gets in touch with three European women and the ship's captain. Everyone speaks his own language... That's why it's a "Talking picture", a meeting among people of several cultures. The dialogue follow the everyday life. The film seems to be very calm and seems to tell simply a friendship story, until the final scene... Where we remain totally surprised.

A small, cultivated and poetic picture, from an European big director.