Manoel DeOliveira
(Copyright © 1999 Piero Scaruffi | Legal restrictions - Termini d'uso )

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In preparazione

Manuel DeOliveira (nato a Oporto nel 1908) cominciò a dirigere nel 1930, passando dal documentario d'ispirazione sovietica al neorealismo dei ragazzini ante-litteram di Aniki-bobò (42).
La sua attività fu molto discontinua per la difficoltà di trovare finanziamenti in un paese dominato da una dittatura fascista. Nel 1963 giro` Acto De Primavera, versione cinematografica di un atto della passione di Cristo celebrato dai contadini di un villaggio, e A Caca/ The Hunt/ La Caccia, un apologo di venti minuti sulla solidarietà umana.

Soltanto negli anni Settanta riesce ad esprimersi compiutamente con la trilogia iniziata da O Pasado e o Presente (1971), commedia borghese influenzata dagli apologhi bunueliani e dallo scavo bergmaniano, una carrellata sulle frustrazioni della borghesia portoghese la cui trama è un complesso intrigo psicologico con frequenti capovolgimenti di situazioni perturbate da un filo di ironia e di un senso di morte.

Benilde (1974) è una tragedia in tre atti alla Dreyer che si svolge interamente nelle camere di una casa di campagna: una vergine che sostiene di essere stata resa incinta da Dio mette a soqquadro un tipico microcosmo borghese.

Francisca (1981) è un romanzo ottocentesco di passione amorosa reso con uno stile da auto sacramentale: un intellettuale cerca di mandare a morte il fidanzamento della poetessa di cui è innamorato diffondendo una calunnia; il matrimonio si fa lo stesso, ma il marito rifiuta di consumarlo e la sposa ne muore di vergogna; l'autopsia le renderà giustizia. Terza parte della trilogia dell'amore frustrato.

"Tetralogy of Frustrated Love" from the 1970s: The Past and the Present; Benilde, or the Virgin Mother; Doomed Love; and Francisca

O Meu Caso/ Mon cas (1987) non narrativo, piece d'avanguardia, cinema del teatro dell'assurdo; maschere, associazioni di idee, scorribande storiche.

Os Canibais/ The Cannibals/ I cannibali (1988), film opera con trama melodrammatica che degrada nel grottesco macabro e surreale.

Le Soulier De Satin (1989), da Claudel: avventuroso storico di sette ore sulle vane gesta amorose di un signorotto.

Non Ou a Ve Gloria de Mandar/ No O La Folle Gloria Del Comando (1990)

A Divina Comedia (1991)

O Dia Do Desespero/ Il Giorno Della Disperazione (1992)

Vale Abramo/ La Valle del Peccato (1993) is the transposition of Augustina Bessa-Luis' novel of 1991.

A Caixa/ La Cassetta (1994)

O Convento/ I misteri del Convento (1995)

Party (1996)

Viagem Ao Principio Do Mundo (1997) is neatly divided into two parts. The tone of the first part, the journey dominated by the old filmmaker, is not so much of a Fellini-esque revisitation of childhood (an impression reinforced by casting Mastroianni in the lead part) as the tone of a verbose old man talking to younger people about insignificant facts that make them curious about life in the past, and that make him happy for having found an audience for his memories. It is an indulgent autobiographical orgy (since the protagonist is an old filmmaker and has the same name of DeOliveira) but it also happens over space and not only time (it's a literal journey). The documentarian style of this first part is hijacked by so many inessential details (like when the girl makes Afonso repeat a poem in French). It feels like four characters in search of a film. Obviously neither the dialogues nor the plot are important in this kind of cinema, and one wonders what is it. The second part answers it, although in an elliptical way. The first part was merely preparing the contrast with the second part. In the second part there is a new protagonist, the young man in search of his roots. The old filmmaker was just enjoying the journey, whereas it's the young man who is desperate to reconnect with his past, or, better, with the past that he has never experienced. While nostalgic and melancholy, Manoel was at peace when he was reconnecting with the past he had lived, but Afonso is not at peace with the past he has not lived. The symbol for both is the traditional hero Pedro Macau: memory is the burden that nobody else helps you carry.

A violently dissonant soundtrack introduces the film while the camera focuses on the road. There are four passengers in the car. The oldest one, Manoel, is a filmmaker, and the other ones are actors in his film. Manoel is discussing with the youngest, Judite, about their age difference. They are on the way to visit the aunt of one of the actors, Afonso, and that part of Portugal happens to be the place where Manoel grew up. Manoel contrasts the idyllic world of his childhood with the apocalyptic world of his old age. After this exchange the dialogue pauses and the camera shows the road they are leaving behind. The dissonant soundtrack fills the silence, accompanied by the ticking of a clock. They stop to stare at the boarding school where Manoel studied as a teenager. They exchange political views. Manoel is apolitical. The school was Jesuit, and the young Judite has trouble relating from the strict atmosphere of the old religious school. Manoel's soliloquy mixes nostalgic reminiscences of an era bygone and a freenwheeling commentary on the state of the world. As they get back into the car and start driving again, the camera continue to point backwards while the characters are silent. They drive through a touristy village with lots of shops and cobblestone streets. As they leave the town and get into a highway, the soundtrack mixes disjointed piano notes and sounds of traffic. They stop again to visit a house that Manoel recognizes because of an odd statue of a legendary hero: Pedro Macau, who is depicted carrying a burden by himself. They walk the narrow alley to the funny sculpture while debating the meaning of the short poem that tradition associates with that hero (that Judite has to translate into French for Afonso, since he is the only one who does not understand Portuguese). They get in the car again, they chat a bit more, the camera again looks at the road that they are leaving behind. The next stop is at an abandoned hotel. Manoel is hurt seeing it so dilapidated. The soundtrack turns to frantic dissonant piano. To explain the meaning of "saudade", they tell the story of the lover betrayed by his girl who also lost his hut at the same time.
As the film progresses, it becomes obvious that Afonso is the real stranger, who has lived all his life in France and is alien to Portugal's history and legends. He is the reason they are going on this trip, but he is also the one who does not belong there.
The exercise of memory is contagious: the others start reminiscing too. Afonso tells the story of this aunt whom he has never met, and of how he was raised in France. His father died in a car crash. Now that Manoel has virtually stopped talking, Afonso takes over as the lead storyteller. They briefly stop to cross on foot a roaring river on a stone bridge. Then they return to the car. The music is extremely dissonant. The camera does not show the road anymore, but the trees by the road.
Finally they arrive at the aunt's house. she is not excited to hear that her lost nephew has come to visit her. That branch of the family never showed any interest in her. She is also disappointed that he does not speak Portuguese. Her young friend Cristina, who is mourning a relative's death with her, speaks French and volunteers to translate for him, as does Judite. The aunt's husband is eavesdropping from the other room, and we see the scene from his viewpoint as he opens the door. The aunt has a low opinion of her late brother, who abandoned them. She viciously mentions that he had many women. Her husband is afraid that Afonso came because of the land that they just inherited from the relative who died. It sounds like they have never forgiven Afonso's father for abandoning the family, and in addition she distrusts Afonso because he doesn't speak Portuguese. Afonso convinces her that he is sincere and asks to see the cemetery of the town. She finally accepts him and offers him bread. She is worried about wars and contemporary life styles. (Manoel was sarcastic about the present, she is terrified by the present). But now it's her who asks the visitor about Afonso's father. In a a very long shot in which the camera never moves, just fixed on the old couple against a black background, she explains that life is hard in the village, cold in winter, hunger. Still a teenager, Afonso's father wanted to leave, and he did, without a word. He was captured and sent a letter to get money to buy his freedom. She felt that her brother forgot that they existed. The husband says that the village, having lost so many of the young, is "returning to the beginning of the world". She is not impressed that he is a famous actor. She despises cinema and television which she considers as inventions of the devil, part of the moral disorder of the age.
Manoel walks around the cemetery while Afonso is praying with his aunt in front of a grave. The time comes that they have to start driving back to the location of the film that they are shooting, i.e. Manoel's film. She hugs Afonso almost crying. Afonso admits to his friends that he had never knelt before in his life. Manoel sarcastically comments that people these days crawl all the time. Manoel comments that he canot hug the people of his past anymore (they are all dead), unlike Afonso who hugged his aunt.
A close-up of Pedro Macau brings us back to the modern world: the set of the film. Backstage, Afonso is being dressed up as... Pedro Macau. Manoel and the other actors burst out laughing at him, but Afonso tells Manoel that he too is a Pedro Macau.

Inquietude/ Anxiety (1998)

A Carta/ The Letter (1999)

Palavra e Utopia/ Word and Utopia (2000)

Je Rentre a la Maison/ I'm Going Home (2001) is, at a first level, a tale of how an old man tries to cope with a tragedy by retreating to a daily routine of insignificant events (reading the newspaper at the cafe, buying new shoes) but is eventually struck by the meaning of the tragedy when that routine is altered by an extraordinary event (in this case, a foreign director who forces him to impersonate a younger man).
At a second level, the film contains three films/plays within the film (Ionesco's "Le Roi Se Meurt/ Exit the King", Shakespeare's "The Tempest", Joyce's "Ulysses"), each of which seems to act as a counterpoint to the main story (the protagonist is like Ionesco's king who cannot cope with his own mortality, but also a bit of a Prospero who, having rejected mundane life for a life of magic, creates the tempest and the very story that he is part of, and finally is a bit of a Buck Mulligan, Joyce's the everyman's version of Ulysses who has to survive the ordeals of an ordinary life). The three impersonations also signal three stages that Gilbert goes through: the old man refusing to face mortality; the magician who creates his own drama; the obnoxious man who is only an accessory to Dedalus/Ulysses' journey and no longer the protagonist.
At a third level, one has the feeling that Oliveira is transposing at least part of his own personality and life's history into the protagonist of this film (for example, when the protagonist refuses to sell out to a tv series); but then at the end this protagonist has to deal with a director as ambitious and diligent in transposing a literary masterpiece to the screen.
At yet another level, the film is a lesson in cinematic language. It features some of Oliveira's trademark obliquely semiotic camera shots (showing a scene taking place on the sidewalk by shooting it from the inside of a store so that we cannot hear the words but have to guess from the gestures what is going on, or following the shooting of a movie through the facial expressions of the director without actually showing what the actors are doing, in a reverse case of hearing their words but not seeing their movements).

Actors are playing Ionesco's "Exit the King". Gilbert, an old famous actor, is playing the lead role. Behind the scenes the staff is clearly worried about something. At the end of the performance, after the audience has given the actors a standing ovation, the protagonist, Gilbert, is told that his wife, his daughter and his son-in-law have been killed in a car accident.
Months later Gilbert wakes up in his room, and looks outside into the garden where his grandson Serge (now an orphan) is playing with the housekeeper and nanny, Guilhermine. Gilbert walks to a cafe with his newspaper and stares at the traffic. We see the street through his eyes, almost as in a documentary. Gilbert pays, leaves and another gentleman takes the same table with his newspaper. On the way home, he stops to look at the window of an art shop. The owner comes out, excited, and talks to him. We cannot hear what they discuss because the camera is now inside the store. As the owner walks back into the store, two girls approach Gilbert and ask him for an autograph. Then the owner also walks out with a notebook for Gilbert to sign an autograph. Gilbert keeps staring for a bit at a painting, then walks to another store. Attracted by a pair of shoes, he buys them and proudly wears them.
Back on the stage, Gilbert is impersonating Prospero in Shakespeare's "The Tempest". A young actress is clearly in love with him. At a cafe his agent irritates Gilbert by mentioning that this young actress could be a way to forget his tragedy. Gilbert is disgusted by the idea of having a girlfriend who could be his daughter. He claims to be happy with his loneliness.
That evening on the way home a junkie robs him of his new shoes. But the following morning is back at the usual cafe, smiling, with his newspaper. He pays, leaves, and again the other customer takes his table. The agent, though, upsets him again by trying to have him sign a contract for a tv serial (in which the young actress would be a co-star). He is not only upset by the idea of doing something so debasing, but he is also nervous because he is wearing his old shoes again.
He goes shopping again and then takes a taxi to his favorite cafe. We see the streets of Paris through the window of the taxi. Gilbert sits at the same table. This time the other customer finds him at the table and has to sit elsewhere. When Gilbert leaves, the other gentleman tries to move to Gilbert's table but yet another customer takes it before him. Disappointed, the other gentleman returns to the other table.
Gilbert brings the gift that he just bought to his grandson Serge and then they play together at home with the remote-controlled cars. When they go to sleep and turn off the lights of the house, a real car speeds outside.
The agent wakes him up in a hurry for an urgent meeting with a USA director who is working on a film version of Joyce's "Ulysses" and needs to fill a part in three days. That is hardly time enough for Gilbert to memorize the part, but he accepts. He has to play Buck Mulligan, a much younger character than he is. The staff of the film production uses a wig and make-up to make him look younger. We see the rehearsal of the first scene through the facial expressions of the director, without seeing the actors. Eventually the director sends Gilbert home to study his text better. But Gilbert falls asleep. When they return to shoot again that scene, Gilbert cannot remember his lines. He stops reciting in English and says in French that he's going home. He wanders through the streets of Paris, continuing to recite his Buck Mulligan lines, walking like a drunk. Serge sees him walk up the stairs still dressed in the costume, wearing the wig and the make-up. Gilbert looks very tired, very old. O Princ¡pio da Incerteza/ The Uncertainty Principle (2002)

Um Filme Falado/ A Talking Picture (2003)

Espelho Magico/ Magic Spell (2005)

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