Trending
    • INVISIBLE BEAUTY, an interview with Frédéric Tcheng
    • CWB Jury & nominees for MOZAIK Bridging The Borders Award at 2023 Lucas FF
    • Jasmin Mozaffari’s short film ‘Motherland, wins TIFF award
    • Poor Thing, Wins Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival
    • Toronto Film Festival 2023
    • Iranian Influential Women: Rakhshan Bani-Etemad
    • Sundance Film Festival Asia
    • Enea, review
    Facebook Twitter Instagram
    Cinema Without Borders
    • Home
    • Feature Story
    • News
    • Conversations
    • Festivals
    • Cinema Tech
    • Film Reviews
    • CinéEqual
    • Other Arts
    • Archives
    Facebook Twitter Instagram
    Cinema Without Borders
    You are at:Home»Film Reviews»Raúl Ruiz's "Mysteries Of Lisbon"

    Raúl Ruiz's "Mysteries Of Lisbon"

    0
    By Robin Menken on 08/09/2011 Film Reviews

    Adapted from Camilo Castelo Branco’s eponymous nineteenth-century Portuguese novel, it has the grace and leisurely pace of 18th and 19th century literature and the visual momentousness of paintings of the same period.

    Ruiz’s fluid camera’s circular moves recall Ophuls or Renoir. Often time we watch tableau like sequences that seem to be quotes of unknown classical paintings. Characters posed in a tight doorway, behind them in deep focus are garden vistas, or sections of a ballroom, all suffused with a strange narrative tension. Sometimes the camera moves latterly, tracking from room to room and back, each time someone else is in the room we just left.

    Ruiz has always jiggered with the dialectic between immersion and detachment, between modernism and the Baroque. Here Ruiz plays sudden violence against tableau like compositions to an uncanny effect. It’s as if he’s sifting the elements of melodrama through modern distancing strategies, while setting them in a classical frame.

    Ruiz uses articulated Toy Theatre interstitials, which take the place of the chapter headings familiar to lovers of classical literature (i.e. ”In which our hero discovers…”etc), to move the story along.

    Like Cervantes or Count Jan Potocki (the author of Saragossa Manuscript) Castelo Branco, and Ruiz dandle story within story at us, each a meditation on class, the flaws of human nature and the failure of love.

    As the tales gyre around their circular DNA connection, Ruiz revels in the delights of storytelling ( Not unlike Mariano Llinás’s ravishing “Extraordinary Tales.” which brought the labyrinthine tradition of telling of tales into the modern world.)

    João aka Pedro da Silva (João Arrais then José Afonso Pimentel) the illegitimate child of an ill-fated romance between two aristocrats who are forbidden to marry, spends decades trying to discover who he is.

    The gifted ward of kindly Father Dinis (Adriano Luz) and his sister, the nun Dona Antónia (Vânia Rodrigues), meets then reunites with his tragically abused mother, the Countess Ângela de Lima (Maria João Bastos) only to lose her to the cruel social hypocrisies of the era.

    The story (or stories) span three decades and two continents: forced marriages, tragic duels, withdrawals to convents, and winding through it all, like a magic trick, the loyal, artfully disguised Father Dimas, whose constant intercessions in the name of the boy and his parents gives shape to the unfolding tragedy. Dimas (a sort of Freemason ex-machina) seems bent on his own redemption as well.

    Ricardo Pereira plays the mysterious mercenary turned industrialist Knife Eater/Alberto de Magalhaes, whose own transformation and redemption at the hand of Dimas sets him on another ironic Judaslike trajectory.

    Other ill fated romances are produced, seemingly randomly, yet, in the end, they all lead to our hero’s doorstep. It’s best to leave the onion of the story tightly wrapped, You will have 4 hours to absorb the lace of ironies on display.

    Carlos Saboga sussurent Portuguese dialogue laps hypnotically against Jorge Arriagada’s lyrical score. André Szankowski’s austere cinematography and Isabel Branco’s detailed art direction give solidity to the wandering tale. Costumer Tania Franco delights in the coquetry of fashions from the panniered courtiers of the late 1800’s through the slim Napoleonic period. The absorbing four-and-a-half-hour theatrical version of a six-hour miniseries for Portuguese television was produced by Paulo Branco, the founder of Madragoa Filmes (Portugal)

    Paris-based Chilean director Ruiz, whose films rarely get an airing in the states, is known for  “Time Regained,” his critically acclaimed adaptation of Proust’s Remembrances of Things Past,  “Genealogies of a Crime,” both starring Catherine Deneuve, and “Three Lives and Only One Death” starring Marcello Mastroianni. He is currently filming a biopic about 20th century French author Jean Giono.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Robin Menken

    Robin Menken Robin Menken lives in Los Angeles. She was the Artistic Director of the Second City Workshops, taught at UC Berkeley, USC, Barcelona\'s Ateneu and the Esalin Institute. She was Roberto Rossellini\'s assistant, and worked with Yevgeny Vevteshenku, Glauber Rocha and Eugene Ionesco. She sold numerous screenplays and wrote the OBIE winning The FTA SHow (touring with Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and Ben Vereen.) She was a programming consultant and Special Events co-ordinator for numerous film festivals, including the SF, Rio, Havana and N.Y Film Festivals. Her first news outlet was the historic East Village Other.

    Related Posts

    Enea, review

    Finally Dawn, Review

    Between Two Worlds, Review

    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    You must be logged in to post a comment.



    Most donations are tax deductible.
    Latest Stories
    09/29/2023

    INVISIBLE BEAUTY, an interview with Frédéric Tcheng

    09/27/2023

    CWB Jury & nominees for MOZAIK Bridging The Borders Award at 2023 Lucas FF

    09/19/2023

    Jasmin Mozaffari’s short film ‘Motherland, wins TIFF award

    09/10/2023

    Poor Thing, Wins Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival

    Bridging The Border Award

    At a time when physical, religious, racial, cultural, and economic borders divide the population of our planet, efforts to bridge those borders should be appreciated. In that spirit, Cinema Without Borders presents Bridging the Borders Award to the films that are most successful in bridging and …Read More

     

    I, Immigrant, International Film Festival
    CineEqual

    CinéEqual represents filmmakers, institutions, and community members with a focus on social justice cinema. As an integrated unit of CWB, it promotes a diverse, inclusive, and equitable democratic society that values the worth of all humans…Read More

     

    About
    About

    Cinema Without Borders is a meeting place of independent cinema. Based in Los Angeles, CWB puts the spotlight on rising talent around the globe to achieve its mission, which is to serve and strengthen communities of filmmakers and film students across real and virtual borders.

    Copyright Cinema Without Borders@2018

    Popular Posts
    01/02/2001

    Cinecon 46-The 46th edition of the Classic Film Festival

    10/09/2006

    An Interview with Jonathan Wolf, Managing Director of AFM

    10/11/2006

    Film & TV production in Afghanistan

    Article Photos
    NasserFarhoudiWP
    SiggrpphSlider
    FundingCoverImage
    6-RADUSlider
    Nouredin-WP-Slider
    NOHOFestival-WP-Slider
    MiamiFF-WP-Slider
    MarkTamez-WP-Slider
    LouderThanBombs-WP-Slider
    HP-Rick-WP-Slider
    HP-Bridging-2-WP-Slider
    HP-Bridging-1-WP-Slider
    Contacts & Credits

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.