The history of Portuguese film industry in these years preceding what became known as "the golden age" in the thirties and forties is highly complicated. While José Leitão de Barros, one of the tenors of the Portuguese realist (naturalistic) style, was already making films as early as 1918 (Mal de Espanha), a considerable impetus was given by the arrival of a series of foreign directors.
Georges Pallu came in 1918-1010 to help Alfredo Nunes de Matos set up Invicta Film in Oporto. He was later joined by the itinerant Italian director Rino Lupo (see my reviews of Pallu and Lupo's Mulheres de Beira and Lupo's Os Lobos) who, after Invicta, worked for the very ephemeral Iberia Film in Lisbon before returning to Oporto to make films at the Invicta studios for his own production company Lupo Film. Pallu, originally contracted for a year, would stay until 1924. Invicta would fold in 1928. Lupo remained in Portugal until 1931 after which nothing more is heard of him.
Meanwhile Matos' friend, Raul de Caldevilla, responsible for the publicity and distribution of the Invicta films, decided to strike out on his own, going off to France (just as Nunes had done the year before) and returning with another Gaumont director, Maurice Mariaud. He also pinched the Invicta cinematographer, British-born Thomas Mary Rosell, who very probably shot this film.
Mariaud made just this one film in 1922, returned to France but came back to Portugal in 1924 to make a film for another ephemeral company Pátria Film in Lisbon. This film, Aventuras de Agapito, Fotografia Comprometedora, was co-directed by Mariaud with yet another Frenchman, Roger Lion who had been persuaded to work in Portugal by wealthy expatriate writer Virgínia de Castro e Almeida who funded the formation of yet another Paris-based company, Fortuna, which produced just two films in 1923 both based on her novels and both directed by Lion. Lion went on to make two films in Portugal in 1924 for his own French production company and then also returned to France. Mariaud returned for the last time in Portugal in 1931 to make one film (Nua, a lost film) for the even more ephemeral Tágide film, a film produced and written by Alberto Castro Neves, his co-star in Os Faroleiros.
The films made by these man are of considerable importance in kick-starting the Portuguese naturalistic cinema. So we find from Invicta and all its ephemeral rivals, as series of films with a strong context of Portuguese village life, in the mountains or on the coast (or in combination, pitting the one against the other as in Os Lobos). The camera work is often impressive. Rosell, if it Rosell, does a good job here and the French cinematographer Maurice Laumann, who replaced Rosell at Invicta and stayed in Portugal until 1928, also does a creditable job. Roger Lion brought a team of three French cameramen with him for the two Fortune films while the films made by the Lisbon companies, Os Lobos (Iberia) and Nua (Tágide) benefit from the work of a fine Portuguese cinematographer, Artur Costa de Macedo.
This film is set in a fishing village. A lighhouseman (played by "Mauricio" Maraud, the director) and his young assistant António (Alberto Castro Neves. The IMDb listing is confused; there is only one "Castro Neves" in the film) are both in love with the same woman, Rosa, whose father has just died at sea when the film opens, leaving her an orphan,. The lighthouseman, who is also her uncle, takes her in at his sister's house and hopes to marry her. So does António who had already been courting her while hr father was alive but of whom her father had not approved. There is nothing whatever romantic about all this. Neither man is particularly likable and Rosa herself seems fairly indifferent to both of them.
The film is described rather oddly as a "commedia dramatica" but there is absolutely. While pressing his suit rather too hotly on a cliff-edge, António meets with stubborn resistance on the part of Rosa. Disturbed by the arrival of the uncle, he runs off and, when Rosa's dead body is later found on the shore, believes that she has fallen from the cliff and that he has accidentally killed her. The uncle also suspects that this is the case but António's very pious mother perjures herself by swearing that her son was at home with her. In this tense situation, the two men set out for their stint in the lighthouse.....
Most of the films involved weer based on Portuguese novels and plays but this film seems to have been written as well as directed by Mariaud (it has nothing to do with the 1918 Brazilian short story of the same name which had been filmed in 1920) and the degree of empathy with Portuguese life, especially its exaggerated piety, is quite remarkable.
In considering the attraction of Portugal for these French directors, it is worth bearing in mind the very ambiguous French attitude towards Portugal. On the one hand it is rather despised as poor and backward; on the other it is seen as a sort of "holy grail" of Catholic piety. For Pallu, religion was an extremely important motive. After his return to France, his Catholicism became almost obsessive and he spent virtually the rest of his carer making religious films.
Whatever, the combination of the two perspectives on their pays d'accueil, the negative and the positive, make for some really rather impressive films that would profoundly influence indigenous Portuguese film-making in the next "golden age" generation and make Portugal, after Italy, the most important site fro naturalistic (neo-realistic) films that continue a European tradition that can readily be traced back to the Lumières.
Georges Pallu came in 1918-1010 to help Alfredo Nunes de Matos set up Invicta Film in Oporto. He was later joined by the itinerant Italian director Rino Lupo (see my reviews of Pallu and Lupo's Mulheres de Beira and Lupo's Os Lobos) who, after Invicta, worked for the very ephemeral Iberia Film in Lisbon before returning to Oporto to make films at the Invicta studios for his own production company Lupo Film. Pallu, originally contracted for a year, would stay until 1924. Invicta would fold in 1928. Lupo remained in Portugal until 1931 after which nothing more is heard of him.
Meanwhile Matos' friend, Raul de Caldevilla, responsible for the publicity and distribution of the Invicta films, decided to strike out on his own, going off to France (just as Nunes had done the year before) and returning with another Gaumont director, Maurice Mariaud. He also pinched the Invicta cinematographer, British-born Thomas Mary Rosell, who very probably shot this film.
Mariaud made just this one film in 1922, returned to France but came back to Portugal in 1924 to make a film for another ephemeral company Pátria Film in Lisbon. This film, Aventuras de Agapito, Fotografia Comprometedora, was co-directed by Mariaud with yet another Frenchman, Roger Lion who had been persuaded to work in Portugal by wealthy expatriate writer Virgínia de Castro e Almeida who funded the formation of yet another Paris-based company, Fortuna, which produced just two films in 1923 both based on her novels and both directed by Lion. Lion went on to make two films in Portugal in 1924 for his own French production company and then also returned to France. Mariaud returned for the last time in Portugal in 1931 to make one film (Nua, a lost film) for the even more ephemeral Tágide film, a film produced and written by Alberto Castro Neves, his co-star in Os Faroleiros.
The films made by these man are of considerable importance in kick-starting the Portuguese naturalistic cinema. So we find from Invicta and all its ephemeral rivals, as series of films with a strong context of Portuguese village life, in the mountains or on the coast (or in combination, pitting the one against the other as in Os Lobos). The camera work is often impressive. Rosell, if it Rosell, does a good job here and the French cinematographer Maurice Laumann, who replaced Rosell at Invicta and stayed in Portugal until 1928, also does a creditable job. Roger Lion brought a team of three French cameramen with him for the two Fortune films while the films made by the Lisbon companies, Os Lobos (Iberia) and Nua (Tágide) benefit from the work of a fine Portuguese cinematographer, Artur Costa de Macedo.
This film is set in a fishing village. A lighhouseman (played by "Mauricio" Maraud, the director) and his young assistant António (Alberto Castro Neves. The IMDb listing is confused; there is only one "Castro Neves" in the film) are both in love with the same woman, Rosa, whose father has just died at sea when the film opens, leaving her an orphan,. The lighthouseman, who is also her uncle, takes her in at his sister's house and hopes to marry her. So does António who had already been courting her while hr father was alive but of whom her father had not approved. There is nothing whatever romantic about all this. Neither man is particularly likable and Rosa herself seems fairly indifferent to both of them.
The film is described rather oddly as a "commedia dramatica" but there is absolutely. While pressing his suit rather too hotly on a cliff-edge, António meets with stubborn resistance on the part of Rosa. Disturbed by the arrival of the uncle, he runs off and, when Rosa's dead body is later found on the shore, believes that she has fallen from the cliff and that he has accidentally killed her. The uncle also suspects that this is the case but António's very pious mother perjures herself by swearing that her son was at home with her. In this tense situation, the two men set out for their stint in the lighthouse.....
Most of the films involved weer based on Portuguese novels and plays but this film seems to have been written as well as directed by Mariaud (it has nothing to do with the 1918 Brazilian short story of the same name which had been filmed in 1920) and the degree of empathy with Portuguese life, especially its exaggerated piety, is quite remarkable.
In considering the attraction of Portugal for these French directors, it is worth bearing in mind the very ambiguous French attitude towards Portugal. On the one hand it is rather despised as poor and backward; on the other it is seen as a sort of "holy grail" of Catholic piety. For Pallu, religion was an extremely important motive. After his return to France, his Catholicism became almost obsessive and he spent virtually the rest of his carer making religious films.
Whatever, the combination of the two perspectives on their pays d'accueil, the negative and the positive, make for some really rather impressive films that would profoundly influence indigenous Portuguese film-making in the next "golden age" generation and make Portugal, after Italy, the most important site fro naturalistic (neo-realistic) films that continue a European tradition that can readily be traced back to the Lumières.
