Der Brief

I came to that movie with a good feeling : the trailer is good, the actress is great, the picture is not bad, the film-maker has a good reputation, the film had a price in cannes, the novel is a classic of french litterature. I was in a good mood too. But nothing of that helped me : I forced myself to stay watching it. I even hoped something would happen, the director awaking or something, but nothing happened. The "contemporary" adaptation of a 17th century novel is always a good idea, because without the costumes, some details of the old times appear differently and helps us to see what really changed during theese centuries. I liked for this "rastignac ou les ambitieux" (a TV movie from Balzac) or "moments de jean-jacques Rousseau", a cd-rom. But "La lettre" didn't work with me. I must tell I hated the music used, some kind of portuguese large audience crooner songs (portugal has so brilliant musicians... why choosing this one ?) and this makes maybe a lot because the music has a certain importance here.

This movie is such a deception. I've been watching some random Manuelde Oliveira movies to understand how he got so renown. Maybe I should go check just the ones that got the best awards. This is the worst I've seen from him. What a waste of time. He could well have condensed all the story into less than an hour and spare us our time. I don't like fast action movies. A movie can be slow and have much more intensity and thoughtfulness. This one however is just boring ideas from boring people. And Pedro Abrunhosa, who happens to be a famous singer from my city should stick to his music career so we don't have to put up with such bad acting and can choose not to listen to his songs.

Scarcely worthy of comment, except to say that "Eyes Wide Shut" would have been much better if Tom Cruise's character had a similar fate to Mr. Cleves (to the tune of the high piano note playing over and over).

Although I was enjoying it at first, I began to suspect that something was awfully awry during the drawing room scene where 'the accident' was revealed in the news.

It was all downhill from there

If you are a maniac who watches movies constantly, you know that you have wasted some hours in your life by movies that have absolutely nothing to say, this debacle is such one....gone are 100 minutes of my life! The story is superthin. A rich girl Madame De Clèves (played by Chiara Mastroianni, and I never could imagine acting could be done in such a boring way) has been destinated by her mother to marry the boring (they definitely found each other!) François De Guise. But of course, our bourgeoisie-lady meets (huuuum) a popstar and falls in love.... Now excuse me and let me point out some critical things. a) the popstar, a certain Pedro Abrunhosa is a macho in Armanisuit who plays the most annoying Portugese rock you can imagine....his crapmusic is about 20 minutes from the movie! b) the popstar seems to be part of the high society of cultural life, so it happens that he plays for a few people who normally only watch pianoconcerts from Chopin. Since when is that cool??????????? c) Since when falls a bourgeoisie-woman for a popstar who is surrounded by groupies? I don't know if director Manoel De Oliviera wanted to be hip by using some popscenes but it only makes his movie ridiculous. And the worst is yet to come! Madame De Clèves cant decide and she asks the help of her friend who happens to be...a nun. The nun tells all philosophicalbullshit that can be told in four words "Do your own thing", but for this intelligent answer you have to see a picture from 100 minutes in where nothing happens. I absolutely don't wanna hear terms like "art cinema", this is just wasted money. God, even Woody Allen wouldn't like to see this garbage.

A masterpiece from a relatively unknown master in his 90s, but a masterpiece that refuses to play the 'great film' game. The excessive reliance on dialogue, stilted performances, ludicrous stylisation and verbose intertitles; the refusal to completely modernise the 17th century material, leaving it in a temporal flatness; all point to gauche filmmaking, but de Oliveira has the last laugh, and as the rhythms and patterns of his editing and framing become apparent, as the deadpan comedy emerges, we notice the stunning labyrinth of repetition he is cunningly weaving, and the film becomes satirically forceful, metaphysically complex, but, most importantly, heartbreakingly human.