Pathé’s 4K restoration of No Fear No Die is a highlight of the Revivals program Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Film at Lincoln Center has announced the Revivals selections of the 60th New York Film Festival. Highlights include Pedro Costa’s O Sangue (Blood); Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore, starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Bernadette Lafont, and Françoise Lebrun; Jacques Tourneur’s Canyon Passage starring Brian Donlevy (with Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg consulting on this restoration); Claire Denis’s No Fear No Die with Isaach De Bankole, Alex Descas, and Jean-Claude Brialy; Mikko Niskanen’s Eight Deadly Shots; Manoel de Oliveira’s The Day Of Despair on the life of Camilo Castelo Branco, played by Mario Barroso; Edward Yang’s A Confucian Confusion starring Ni Shujun, and Balufu Bakupu-Kanyinda’s Le Damier, screening with Radu Jude’s short The Potemkinists (in the Currents program).
The 60th New York Film...
Film at Lincoln Center has announced the Revivals selections of the 60th New York Film Festival. Highlights include Pedro Costa’s O Sangue (Blood); Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore, starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Bernadette Lafont, and Françoise Lebrun; Jacques Tourneur’s Canyon Passage starring Brian Donlevy (with Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg consulting on this restoration); Claire Denis’s No Fear No Die with Isaach De Bankole, Alex Descas, and Jean-Claude Brialy; Mikko Niskanen’s Eight Deadly Shots; Manoel de Oliveira’s The Day Of Despair on the life of Camilo Castelo Branco, played by Mario Barroso; Edward Yang’s A Confucian Confusion starring Ni Shujun, and Balufu Bakupu-Kanyinda’s Le Damier, screening with Radu Jude’s short The Potemkinists (in the Currents program).
The 60th New York Film...
- 8/24/2022
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Black Book Of Father Dinis Music Box Home Entertainment Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Valeria Sarmento Writer: Carlos Saboga, from the novel by Camilo Castelo Branco Cast: Lou de Laâge, Stanislas Merhar, Niels Schneider, Jenna Thiam, David Caracol Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 11/13/20 Opens: December […]
The post The Black Book of Father Dinis Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post The Black Book of Father Dinis Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 12/2/2020
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
Cinematic representations of passion usually involve hot color schemes, sweaty images and fiery emotions, symbols of riveting and uncontrollable desire. In his 1981 masterpiece Francisca, a sprawling adaptation of Agustina Bessa-Luís’s novel Fanny Owen—itself based on true events—master filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira devilishly internalizes these melodramatic tropes, draping them in the opulent textures, swirling mustaches, and snooty stubbornness of 1850s high-society Portugal. Its key characters speak of love and lust, but each remains more beholden to the rigorous expectations of social protocols than anything else.
Their repressed emotions are left to stagnate as time passes. Free-spiritedness cannot exist in such a suspended state of ornate equilibrium, and so life becomes nothing more than mechanized routine. Like many of his generation, twenty-something José Agusto (Diogo Dória) has grown up in a state of national volatility, as Portugal transitions from the reign of Dom João VI to a society split between “liberalism and absolutism,...
Their repressed emotions are left to stagnate as time passes. Free-spiritedness cannot exist in such a suspended state of ornate equilibrium, and so life becomes nothing more than mechanized routine. Like many of his generation, twenty-something José Agusto (Diogo Dória) has grown up in a state of national volatility, as Portugal transitions from the reign of Dom João VI to a society split between “liberalism and absolutism,...
- 11/14/2020
- by Glenn Heath Jr.
- The Film Stage
"We were speaking about the infinite, about love and magnetism..." Grasshopper Film has released a new trailer for a 4K restoration of a Portuguese biographical epic called Francisca, from acclaimed filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira. Camilo Castelo Branco, the author of the novel from which Oliveira adapted Doomed Love, also emerged as a character in the director's next film—Francisca—a sinister, absorbing portrait of a mutually destructive love affair. Oliveira's source text for Francisca was a novel by Agustina Bessa-Luís: the book's re-telling of a troubled passage in Camilo's life, his friend José Augusto (Diogo Dória) embarked on a perverse game of marital cat and mouse with Francisca (Teresa Menezes), the woman the novelist loved, led Oliveira to new levels of stylistic and formal imagination. With its elaborate title cards, its abundance of shots in which the action is oriented directly toward the camera, its gloomy interiors, and its show-stopping gala set-pieces,...
- 11/2/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Epic in length but not in dramatic punch, Raúl Ruiz‘s plodding period literary adaptation Mysteries of Lisbon sells itself as a highbrow soap opera but is mainly just a glorified video installation piece. In theory, the 18th century-set plot (taken from Camilo Castelo Branco’s novel) full of lurid intrigues, forbidden loves, piracy, betrayals, murders and secret identities should make for an engrossing narrative puzzle. But as flashbacks pile up and backstories spiral inward, audience yawns spill out. Ruiz seems to be experimenting with elasticized melodrama, with each plot point stretched to its limit, each big revelation squeezing glacially to the surface — and usually falling flat on arrival.…...
- 5/20/2020
- by Ryan Brown
- IONCINEMA.com
It’s been 10 years since Raúl Ruiz’s Mysteries of Lisbon was released and now Music Box Films is ready to release the sweeping epic saga to the U.S. in episodic form. Music Box is set to release the film, which ran over 270 minutes, in the original six-hour episodic miniseries version with footage never before seen in the U.S. The film will kick off its virtual premiere May 22 with a two-week virtual engagement at Film at Lincoln Center in New York.
Adapted from the novel by the 19th-century Portuguese author Camilo Castelo Branco, the film sprawls across three decades, four countries and a host of rich characters — all sparked by one man’s search for the truth — and is filled with all manner of adventures and escapades, coincidences and revelations, sentiments and violent passions, and vengeance and romance, set against the backdrop of Portugal’s 1820 revolution.
The film follows João,...
Adapted from the novel by the 19th-century Portuguese author Camilo Castelo Branco, the film sprawls across three decades, four countries and a host of rich characters — all sparked by one man’s search for the truth — and is filled with all manner of adventures and escapades, coincidences and revelations, sentiments and violent passions, and vengeance and romance, set against the backdrop of Portugal’s 1820 revolution.
The film follows João,...
- 5/7/2020
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: CAA has inked Portuguese actress Daniela Melchior, who will next star as supervillain Ratchatcher in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad for Warner Bros.
The character in DC lore is known for its ability to control rats and stage a variety of crimes throughout Gotham City.
Melchior is known for her roles in the Portuguese period feature The Black book directed by Valeria Sarmiento, based on the novel from Camilo Castelo Branco. She also starred in the feature Parque Mayer from Mgn Filmes and directed by António-Pedro Vasconcelos.
Melchior also voiced the lead role of Gwen Stacy in the Sony Pictures Portugal Animation version of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
On the TV side she has shot five TV series in her home country: Valor da Vida, A Herderia, Ouro Verde, Massa Fresca and Mulheres, all for Portugal’s Channel Tvi.
She continues to be represented by Brave Artists Management...
The character in DC lore is known for its ability to control rats and stage a variety of crimes throughout Gotham City.
Melchior is known for her roles in the Portuguese period feature The Black book directed by Valeria Sarmiento, based on the novel from Camilo Castelo Branco. She also starred in the feature Parque Mayer from Mgn Filmes and directed by António-Pedro Vasconcelos.
Melchior also voiced the lead role of Gwen Stacy in the Sony Pictures Portugal Animation version of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
On the TV side she has shot five TV series in her home country: Valor da Vida, A Herderia, Ouro Verde, Massa Fresca and Mulheres, all for Portugal’s Channel Tvi.
She continues to be represented by Brave Artists Management...
- 2/18/2020
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Films from Valeria Sarmiento, Benjamín Naishtat, Markus Schleinzer and Simon Jaquemet also selected.
The first films to compete for the Golden Shell at the 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 21-29) have been announced.
They include Claire Denis’ English-language sci-fi title High Life, which stars Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin and Robert Pattinson, Naomi Kawase’s Vision, which also stars Binoche alongside Masatoshi Nagase, and South Korean director Kim Jee-woon’s Illang: The Wolf Brigade , a remake of anime Jin-Roh from Ghost In The Shell writer Mamoru Oshii. Kim’s I Saw The Devil competed at the festival in 2010.
Chilean director Valeria...
The first films to compete for the Golden Shell at the 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 21-29) have been announced.
They include Claire Denis’ English-language sci-fi title High Life, which stars Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin and Robert Pattinson, Naomi Kawase’s Vision, which also stars Binoche alongside Masatoshi Nagase, and South Korean director Kim Jee-woon’s Illang: The Wolf Brigade , a remake of anime Jin-Roh from Ghost In The Shell writer Mamoru Oshii. Kim’s I Saw The Devil competed at the festival in 2010.
Chilean director Valeria...
- 7/13/2018
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
Madrid — Claire Denis’ “High Life,” Kim Jee-woon’s “Illang: the Wolf Brigade” and Naomi Kawase’s “Vision” feature among the first seven titles competing for the San Sebastian Festival’s top Golden Shell.
Also making the main competition cut, confirmed on Friday by San Sebastian, are Valeria Sarmiento’s “The Black Book” and three directors on many critics’ to-track lists: Austria’s Markus Schleinzer, Argentina’s Benjamín Naishtat and Switzerland’s Simon Jaquemet.
Around 10 competition contenders remain to be announced, including the big Spanish titles which often take major prizes. For the moment, however, many of the first titles paint the picture, sometimes via genre, of a world shook to its foundations by highly convulsive or dramatic times. Whether the tremors of the French Revolution (“The Black Book”), a rioting future Korea facing reunification, relationships, highly human characters or even humanity is threatened, by the build of covert police violence...
Also making the main competition cut, confirmed on Friday by San Sebastian, are Valeria Sarmiento’s “The Black Book” and three directors on many critics’ to-track lists: Austria’s Markus Schleinzer, Argentina’s Benjamín Naishtat and Switzerland’s Simon Jaquemet.
Around 10 competition contenders remain to be announced, including the big Spanish titles which often take major prizes. For the moment, however, many of the first titles paint the picture, sometimes via genre, of a world shook to its foundations by highly convulsive or dramatic times. Whether the tremors of the French Revolution (“The Black Book”), a rioting future Korea facing reunification, relationships, highly human characters or even humanity is threatened, by the build of covert police violence...
- 7/13/2018
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
The ghosts did not take long to present themselves. Oliveira's seventh feature, Visita ou Memórias e Confissões, conveys a bevy of autobiographical musings on his family house and himself. Filmed in 1981 when he was 73, yet shelved voluntarily until after his death, Memories and Confessions has since become a kind of talisman for the director, an n+1 variable where the n is his 31-item back catalogue cut short last year. The first character introduced in the movie is a magnolia that blooms twice a year—first in "a rapid blossoming," then in the shape of "a rare star of maturity." Conveniently, the film's structure comprises just what the original title enumerates: a visit, some memories, a handful of confessions. The visitors in question are a man and a woman whom we do not get to see but whose voices we keep hearing off-screen. As they drop in at an empty house...
- 6/3/2015
- by Boris Nelepo
- MUBI
★★★★☆ Now infamous for being the last completed film by the late Chilean director Raúl Ruiz, Mysteries of Lisbon (2010) is a sprawling, intoxicating 19th century epic adapted from the masterful novel Mistérios de Lisboa by literary figure Camilo Castelo Branco. With a gargantuan runtime of just over four-and-a-half hours (and thankfully bisected into two distinct parts), Ruiz' magnum opus is easily one of the best costume dramas of recent years and a worthy - though untimely - end to a rich directorial career.
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Read more »...
- 3/16/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1; The Help; My Week With Marilyn; Straw Dogs; Mysteries of Lisbon
Fans of Stephenie Meyer's addictive teen Twilight novels (whose number may be few among Observer readers) have long been worrying how the ongoing screen adaptations of her international bestsellers would handle the twisted psycho-sexual contortions of the final instalment. On the evidence of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011, EOne, 12) the answer is "not without a little difficulty". Director Bill Condon may be a safe pair of hands, but even under his mainstream moderation this tale of fatal attraction, vampire babies and alien love triangles still drifts into territory in which Davids Lynch or Cronenberg may have been more at home. Certainly, Bella's descent into living death in the wake of her long-awaited marriage to Edward contains some stark visual imagery, which pushes at the boundaries of the 12 certificate. Watching her wither...
Fans of Stephenie Meyer's addictive teen Twilight novels (whose number may be few among Observer readers) have long been worrying how the ongoing screen adaptations of her international bestsellers would handle the twisted psycho-sexual contortions of the final instalment. On the evidence of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011, EOne, 12) the answer is "not without a little difficulty". Director Bill Condon may be a safe pair of hands, but even under his mainstream moderation this tale of fatal attraction, vampire babies and alien love triangles still drifts into territory in which Davids Lynch or Cronenberg may have been more at home. Certainly, Bella's descent into living death in the wake of her long-awaited marriage to Edward contains some stark visual imagery, which pushes at the boundaries of the 12 certificate. Watching her wither...
- 3/11/2012
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
Chicago – In many ways, 2011 was the year of startlingly successful throwbacks. Who could’ve guessed that Woody Allen, Tom Cruise and The Muppets would revive their crowd-pleasing appeal? How many moviegoing soothsayers predicted that Michel Hazanavicius’ melodrama, “The Artist,” would become an Oscar front-runner that proves the silent art form is far from dead?
And who could’ve possibly dreamed that veteran Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz would end his extraordinary 48-year-long career with a staggering epic that revitalized the storytelling techniques of a nineteenth century Portuguese novelist? “Mysteries of Lisbon” is a direct rebuke to the conventional narratives that follow uncluttered three-act structures. At four-and-a-half hours, this film preserves the scope and density of its source material, while utilizing modern technology to make every frame thrillingly cinematic.
Blu-ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Author Camilo Castelo Branco’s illegitimate birth and upbringing as an orphan are clearly reflected in the young character placed at the center of his 1852 novel.
And who could’ve possibly dreamed that veteran Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz would end his extraordinary 48-year-long career with a staggering epic that revitalized the storytelling techniques of a nineteenth century Portuguese novelist? “Mysteries of Lisbon” is a direct rebuke to the conventional narratives that follow uncluttered three-act structures. At four-and-a-half hours, this film preserves the scope and density of its source material, while utilizing modern technology to make every frame thrillingly cinematic.
Blu-ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Author Camilo Castelo Branco’s illegitimate birth and upbringing as an orphan are clearly reflected in the young character placed at the center of his 1852 novel.
- 1/24/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
I am so excited to be able to see this on Blu. The recently released Mysteries of Lisbon was picked by nationally known fellow Chicago film journalist and critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (At The Movies) as his favorite film of 2011 and it promises to be quite a ride for anyone who has the patience to sit through it's 266 minute run time. That's right, you read correctly. This film is 4 and a half hours long. The source novel by Camilo Castelo Branco offered legendary director Raul Ruiz a monumental challenge and by many accounts he meets it head on telling the story (and the stories within those stories) with a keen eye for pacing and breathtaking compositions. I can say that the trailer looks...
- 1/19/2012
- Screen Anarchy
Four-and-a-half hours of ambiguous, interweaving fictions fly by in the expert hands of veteran director Raúl Ruiz
Raúl Ruiz, who died in August aged 70, left his native Chile following the 1973 Pinochet coup and settled in France to become one of cinema's most prolific and singular film-makers. Sadly his work has been regarded as too obscure or avant-garde for British audiences and only a handful of his 100 or more pictures have been released here. The most recent was the ambitious, enigmatic Klimt, shown here in 2007, starring John Malkovich as the Austrian painter. It was characteristically described by Ruiz as "a phantasmagoria in the manner of Arthur Schnitzler" and, interestingly, in view of Scorsese's Hugo, features a meeting between Klimt and the movie pioneer Georges Méliès at the 1900 World Exposition in Paris.
The Ruiz picture that made the greatest impression here was Time Regained (starring Malkovich as Baron de Charlus), his bold...
Raúl Ruiz, who died in August aged 70, left his native Chile following the 1973 Pinochet coup and settled in France to become one of cinema's most prolific and singular film-makers. Sadly his work has been regarded as too obscure or avant-garde for British audiences and only a handful of his 100 or more pictures have been released here. The most recent was the ambitious, enigmatic Klimt, shown here in 2007, starring John Malkovich as the Austrian painter. It was characteristically described by Ruiz as "a phantasmagoria in the manner of Arthur Schnitzler" and, interestingly, in view of Scorsese's Hugo, features a meeting between Klimt and the movie pioneer Georges Méliès at the 1900 World Exposition in Paris.
The Ruiz picture that made the greatest impression here was Time Regained (starring Malkovich as Baron de Charlus), his bold...
- 12/11/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
It may be more than four hours long, but Raúl Ruiz's final film is an entrancingly strange, beautifully eccentric fable set in 19th-century Portugal
This is the last completed work from the remarkable and prolific Chilean film-maker Raúl Ruiz, who died in August this year at the age of 70. Originally intended as a TV mini-series, it has now been boldly put together as a dream-epic feature in two parts, lasting four-and-a-half hours. Mysteries of Lisbon is intensely and captivatingly strange, a sinuous melodrama about secrecy, destiny and memory in which everyone involved appears to be in a state of hypnosis and on the edge of departing for some Magrittean alternative universe. "Mysteries" is exactly right.
Ruiz's screenwriter Carlos Saboga has adapted an 1854 novel, Mistérios de Lisboa, by the Portuguese author Camilo Castelo Branco, set around the turn of the 19th century. Branco's story is an involved tale of coincidences,...
This is the last completed work from the remarkable and prolific Chilean film-maker Raúl Ruiz, who died in August this year at the age of 70. Originally intended as a TV mini-series, it has now been boldly put together as a dream-epic feature in two parts, lasting four-and-a-half hours. Mysteries of Lisbon is intensely and captivatingly strange, a sinuous melodrama about secrecy, destiny and memory in which everyone involved appears to be in a state of hypnosis and on the edge of departing for some Magrittean alternative universe. "Mysteries" is exactly right.
Ruiz's screenwriter Carlos Saboga has adapted an 1854 novel, Mistérios de Lisboa, by the Portuguese author Camilo Castelo Branco, set around the turn of the 19th century. Branco's story is an involved tale of coincidences,...
- 12/9/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★☆☆ This August saw the sad death of prolific Chilean director Raoul Ruiz, whose last complete film Mysteries of Lisbon (2010) - based upon Camilo Castelo Branco's classic novel - opens this week at selected cinemas. Set in the 19th century, this lavish costume drama is a collection of interweaving vignettes anchored around orphan Pedro da Silva, and as the plot unfolds each character's past is unfolded with deft skill and precision, unveiling the truths shared between this diverse collection of peasants and nobles.
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- 12/8/2011
- by Daniel Green
- CineVue
Release Date: Dec. 20, 2011
Price: Three-disc DVD $34.95, Blu-ray $43.95
Studio: Music Box Films
The mini-series drama movie Mysteries of Lisbon is one of the final works by legendary Chilean filmmaker Raul Ruiz (Time Regained), who died in August 2011 at the age of 70.
An adaptation of the 19th century novel by Portugal’s Camilo Castelo Branco, the epic film follows a man’s search for the truth over three decades and four countries. According to the Music Box press release, the film “is a saga that evokes the artistry, intricacy and richness of the sprawling intertwined narratives of such giants as Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens.”
Set in Portugal’s capital city in the 19th century, Mysteries of Lisbon tells the story of 14-year-old orphan Joao (played by Joao Luis Arrais as a child, Afonso Pimentel as an adult), who begins a quest to find the truth about his parents, his origins and himself.
Price: Three-disc DVD $34.95, Blu-ray $43.95
Studio: Music Box Films
The mini-series drama movie Mysteries of Lisbon is one of the final works by legendary Chilean filmmaker Raul Ruiz (Time Regained), who died in August 2011 at the age of 70.
An adaptation of the 19th century novel by Portugal’s Camilo Castelo Branco, the epic film follows a man’s search for the truth over three decades and four countries. According to the Music Box press release, the film “is a saga that evokes the artistry, intricacy and richness of the sprawling intertwined narratives of such giants as Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens.”
Set in Portugal’s capital city in the 19th century, Mysteries of Lisbon tells the story of 14-year-old orphan Joao (played by Joao Luis Arrais as a child, Afonso Pimentel as an adult), who begins a quest to find the truth about his parents, his origins and himself.
- 11/4/2011
- by Sam
- Disc Dish
Finally making its way into American theatres on the cusp of its director’s passing, Mistérios de Lisboa [Mysteries of Lisbon] gives us an epic look into the bourgeois dramatics of Portugal’s capital city. The press notes for the film contain a pretty accurate and concise three-word description by Raúl Ruiz—“birth, betrayal, redemption”. That triplet sums up Camilo Castelo Branco’s 1854 novel and the adapted screenplay from Carlos Saboga to perfection, each word a huge piece to the tale surrounding an anonymous orphan named João. But as his mystery is uncovered, the sprawling soap opera turns into a sumptuous visual splendor of the past and fate’s often surprisingly coincidental blueprint. Through the orations of dying men and men raised from the ashes of dead aliases, Lisbon is brought to life through its 19th century aristocratic nobility. With a young boy in search of an identity at its center, his part...
- 9/6/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Chilean-born film-maker who became the darling of the French avant garde
Raúl Ruiz, the Chilean-born film director who has died aged 70 after suffering a lung infection, held audiences with his glittering eye for more than 40 years. Baroque imagery, bizarre humour and labyrinthine plots made his elusive and allusive oeuvre unlike anything else in contemporary cinema.
Although most of his films were made while he was an exile in France, his work was part of the fabulist tradition that runs through much Latin American literature, such as the writings of Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges and Alfonso Reyes. Ruiz liked to quote the Cuban surrealist writer José Lezama Lima, who stated that the task of the poet is "to go into a dark room and build a waterfall there".
Born in Puerto Montt, in southern Chile, Ruiz studied law, theology and theatre before becoming a prolific avant-garde playwright. His first feature,...
Raúl Ruiz, the Chilean-born film director who has died aged 70 after suffering a lung infection, held audiences with his glittering eye for more than 40 years. Baroque imagery, bizarre humour and labyrinthine plots made his elusive and allusive oeuvre unlike anything else in contemporary cinema.
Although most of his films were made while he was an exile in France, his work was part of the fabulist tradition that runs through much Latin American literature, such as the writings of Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges and Alfonso Reyes. Ruiz liked to quote the Cuban surrealist writer José Lezama Lima, who stated that the task of the poet is "to go into a dark room and build a waterfall there".
Born in Puerto Montt, in southern Chile, Ruiz studied law, theology and theatre before becoming a prolific avant-garde playwright. His first feature,...
- 8/19/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
I had intended to post a different Movie Poster of the Week this morning when I heard the sad news about the passing of the great Raúl Ruiz. This poster may be the saddest memento of all, since it is for a film that will now never be made. Announced in Cannes this spring, the epic Napoleonic-era Lines of Wellington was to have been produced by Paulo Branco’s Alfama Films and was being pitched as “War and Peace in Portugal.” Scripted by Carlos Saboga, who also adapted Mysteries of Lisbon, the film, based on the memoirs of some of Napoleon’s generals, was to chronicle the defeat of Napoleon’s troops during the third French invasion of Portugal in 1810-11. The poster, which I discovered on the website Le Cinema de Raúl Ruiz, is a pre-release teaser which may never even have been printed (though perhaps it was hanging...
- 8/19/2011
- MUBI
When the camera moves in Raúl Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon (a film that manages to be baroque, Gothic, Expressionist and modernist at all once), it moves so weightlessly, relentlessly and unexpectedly that it seems as though it might at any moment pass—Fincher-style—through a wall. And sometimes it actually does. It performs the trick it's been hinting at. It slides sly, unshowy, snake-like from one room into another without missing a beat of the action.
For example: A priest and a boy are sitting in the waiting room of a country estate. The boy stands up to look at some paintings that are hanging on the wall, and Ruiz cuts from the boy's perspective of the paintings to some reverse shots of him to some vague and distorted images (suggesting "memories" in '40s shorthand) and then back to the wide shot of the waiting room—the trusty,...
For example: A priest and a boy are sitting in the waiting room of a country estate. The boy stands up to look at some paintings that are hanging on the wall, and Ruiz cuts from the boy's perspective of the paintings to some reverse shots of him to some vague and distorted images (suggesting "memories" in '40s shorthand) and then back to the wide shot of the waiting room—the trusty,...
- 8/5/2011
- MUBI
In 19th-century Portugal, a bastard boy and a kindly priest are at the center of a plot that stretches backward and forward across decades, involving pirates, thieves, and slave-traders as well as society’s upper crust. Raúl Ruiz’s Mysteries Of Lisbon is based on a novel by Camilo Castelo Branco, and follows a tangled “Let me tell you my story” structure, which means that at any time, one of the narrators can hand off to someone else with a related anecdote. Characters recur from subplot to subplot, though they don’t always look the same, and it sometimes ...
- 8/4/2011
- avclub.com
Legendary director Raoul Ruiz gives audiences the first film of his sixth decade of filmmaking with "Mysteries of Lisbon," which topped four other specialty openers this weekend to be the criticWIRE pick of the week. An adaptation of a famous 19th-century novel by Portuguese author Camilo Castelo Branco, the film focuses on the child of an ill-fated romance between two aristocrats who are forbidden to marry. Many thought "Lisbon" would ...
- 8/3/2011
- Indiewire
The award-wnning period drama "Mysteries of Lisbon", directed by Raúl Ruiz, stars Adriano Luz, Maria João Bastos, Ricardo Pereira, Clotilde Hesme and Afonso Pimentel, adapting the nineteenth-century Portuguese novel by author Camilo Castelo Branco:
"...'Joao' is the child of an ill-fated romance between two members of the aristocracy who are forbidden to marry. His quest is to find out who is parents are, as a multitude of characters conjoin, separate and then rejoin again over three decades in Portugal, Spain, France and Italy..."
"Mysteries of Lisbon" opens August 5th, 2011.
Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Mysteries of Lisbon"...
"...'Joao' is the child of an ill-fated romance between two members of the aristocracy who are forbidden to marry. His quest is to find out who is parents are, as a multitude of characters conjoin, separate and then rejoin again over three decades in Portugal, Spain, France and Italy..."
"Mysteries of Lisbon" opens August 5th, 2011.
Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Mysteries of Lisbon"...
- 7/18/2011
- by Michael Stevens
- SneakPeek
Updated through 10/12.
"Fresh from its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, [Raúl Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon] is being shown just once, on Sunday, and doesn't have a distributor, so buy a ticket and grab some snacks," advises Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. You'd have to be quick about it, too. That showing begins shortly. "[T]he movie runs a daunting if easy-to-take 272 minutes. Based on a 19th-century Portuguese novel by Camilo Castelo Branco, it was partly produced for television and shot in digital, but is eminently cinematic whether watched on the big screen or small. The dizzying plot centers on a teenage boy, who, through many stories, intrigues and flashbacks within flashbacks, unlocks the secret of his patrimony."...
"Fresh from its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, [Raúl Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon] is being shown just once, on Sunday, and doesn't have a distributor, so buy a ticket and grab some snacks," advises Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. You'd have to be quick about it, too. That showing begins shortly. "[T]he movie runs a daunting if easy-to-take 272 minutes. Based on a 19th-century Portuguese novel by Camilo Castelo Branco, it was partly produced for television and shot in digital, but is eminently cinematic whether watched on the big screen or small. The dizzying plot centers on a teenage boy, who, through many stories, intrigues and flashbacks within flashbacks, unlocks the secret of his patrimony."...
- 10/12/2010
- MUBI
The programme for this year’s festival has been announced and there are a number of literature-based films including the Opening Night Gala Never Let Me Go, Closing Night Gala 127 Hours and the provocative ‘Muslim punks’ film The Taqwacores.
With so many films in this year’s Lff programme having their origins in printed form, a discussion panel is also being held on 25th October, with a number of screenwriters discussing their adaptations in the Hollywood Reporter-sponsored event A Novel Idea: Adapting Books for the Screen.
Below a selection of the films with a literary connection screening at this year’s London Film Festival:
Literary Feature Films:
127 Hours; Dir. Danny Boyle – Gripping, adventurous film making and headline grabbing drama from Oscar winning director Danny Boyle, based on Aron Ralston’s book Between a Rock and A Hard Place (set for re-release in January).
The American; Dir. Anton Corbijn – George Clooney...
With so many films in this year’s Lff programme having their origins in printed form, a discussion panel is also being held on 25th October, with a number of screenwriters discussing their adaptations in the Hollywood Reporter-sponsored event A Novel Idea: Adapting Books for the Screen.
Below a selection of the films with a literary connection screening at this year’s London Film Festival:
Literary Feature Films:
127 Hours; Dir. Danny Boyle – Gripping, adventurous film making and headline grabbing drama from Oscar winning director Danny Boyle, based on Aron Ralston’s book Between a Rock and A Hard Place (set for re-release in January).
The American; Dir. Anton Corbijn – George Clooney...
- 9/22/2010
- by Martyn Conterio
- FilmShaft.com
0949 All About Love (Ann Hui, Hong Kong /China)
The second strong film from this Hong Kong new wave filmmaker this year, after Rotterdam’s Night and Fog, proves that even if I lost track of Hui after her first couple films, her contemporary work is of supreme craftsmanship and expressive control of drama and mise-en-scène. This film really purrs in its first half, where Hui calls up the social message melodrama of Night and Fog for a lesbian romance as packed with didactic basic human equality messages as it is sharp, clear-eyed drama. With considerable agility the film follows two old flames (Sandra Ng and Vivian Chow) who bump into each other at a single-mothers pregnancy meeting and re-kindle their past relationship. Hui follows them as they trek up and down Hong Kong’s hills at night, not quite willing to follow one or the other into one of their apartments for the night,...
The second strong film from this Hong Kong new wave filmmaker this year, after Rotterdam’s Night and Fog, proves that even if I lost track of Hui after her first couple films, her contemporary work is of supreme craftsmanship and expressive control of drama and mise-en-scène. This film really purrs in its first half, where Hui calls up the social message melodrama of Night and Fog for a lesbian romance as packed with didactic basic human equality messages as it is sharp, clear-eyed drama. With considerable agility the film follows two old flames (Sandra Ng and Vivian Chow) who bump into each other at a single-mothers pregnancy meeting and re-kindle their past relationship. Hui follows them as they trek up and down Hong Kong’s hills at night, not quite willing to follow one or the other into one of their apartments for the night,...
- 9/18/2010
- MUBI
From Albania to Vietnam, 65 countries are hoping that their film entries will get picked to fill one of the five slots for Best Foreign Language Film for the 82nd annual Academy Awards.
Five slots, 65 countries, the competition is fierce! Our friends from Variety gave us this list, is your country of choice one of the 65 hopefuls?
I'm happy that my home country, the Philippines, has a fighting chance with the dramedy "Ded na si Lolo" ("Grandpa is Dead"). Take a look at the complete list.
Albania
Alive!
(Artan Minarolli)
Synopsis: A carefree Albanian student gets drawn into an ancient blood feud when he returns home for a funeral, only to find himself a wanted man.
Awards: Belgrade Film Festival B2B development grant
Sales: Wildart Film
Argentina
El secreto de sus ojos
(Juan Jose Campanella)
Synopsis: An ambitious, complex work that combines two generation-spanning love stories, a noirish thriller, some...
Five slots, 65 countries, the competition is fierce! Our friends from Variety gave us this list, is your country of choice one of the 65 hopefuls?
I'm happy that my home country, the Philippines, has a fighting chance with the dramedy "Ded na si Lolo" ("Grandpa is Dead"). Take a look at the complete list.
Albania
Alive!
(Artan Minarolli)
Synopsis: A carefree Albanian student gets drawn into an ancient blood feud when he returns home for a funeral, only to find himself a wanted man.
Awards: Belgrade Film Festival B2B development grant
Sales: Wildart Film
Argentina
El secreto de sus ojos
(Juan Jose Campanella)
Synopsis: An ambitious, complex work that combines two generation-spanning love stories, a noirish thriller, some...
- 11/7/2009
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
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