Vai~E~Vem

I loved this film. The dialogues are wonderful and the story itself is amusing as we see J.César Monteiro in one of his best performances. The script has wonderful dialogues and is filled with bright and irreverent humour (a quality of Cesar Monteiro's writting). It's the story of an old-man (João Vuvu played by João César Monteiro) who has a son in jail and lives alone..strange events takes place as he goes to the hospital after being sodomized by a a very weird beard woman who fancies women. This is the last film by João César Monteiro because he left us this year at february..another victim of cancer..this film holds his memory.

I saw this movie one year and half ago... When I saw, i give 1 star, and now, after all this time, I gave another's 4 stars.. Its a movie like the book Little Prince, you have to grow to understand, and get the knowledge to realize what its the main problem there, and after that, you will see the pain behind the movie... Its a movie to see every 3 years, and every time you will change your perspective about this magnificent piece of art. Its a slow movie, but once you get the reason and love from the characters, the slow begin to feel faster that you want your life to be. It was the mirror of many old people that feel left from their family, and after all they give for us, we felt them. I love the movie, and most the message.

This movie is a complete waste of time. The whole thing consists of endless static shots of the writer/director/star, Monteiro, spouting witty sounding or profound sounding gibberish.

Every now and then Monteiro minces around, quasi-adorably, like a wizened little Portuguese Nosferatu.

To sustain audience interest and to presumably show what exquisite taste he has, Monteiro places a young nubile Latina hottie in the shot, and allows her to listen in rapt attention while he spouts off endlessly. All I can say is, I certainly hope she was paid well for what must surely have been the sheerest torture.

The only redeeming qualities to this film were a couple nice musical numbers on the soundtrack and the beautiful outside location shots of Lisbon.

I've seen one other of Monteiro's movies, "God's Comedy", and that had similar problems, but not as bad as "Vai E Vem".

Much is made of the fact that this was Monteiro's last film before he died in 2003. It seems pretty clear from the hugely self absorbed and self indulgent character of this film that it constitutes more of a curse than a blessing on the world he was leaving behind.

More than the fact that this is a filmed testament from the dying director, this movie is a lesson of life. Life and cinema showed by someone who knew both very well. It's not a lesson of moral, things are sometimes weird, so this is a complete, pertinent, not hiding anything, and leading us to all kind of enjoyment. Pleasure and contemplation are always showed with a kind of nostalgia. Also, some plans are really interesting to watch and shows a way of filming, and of seeing life very difficult to show (except in painting). Playing with different factors, (rhythm, time, some objects) it's showing this Beyond all objectivity, or with an objectivity beyond objects... Monteiro is playing with our senses...

I agree it can be difficult to watch, because it's long, slow, without a lot of cuts, neither a lot of movements, everything is done with long plans. But all that is the rhythm of an old guy watching life, and having his last pleasures, and taking time to have it. It's an ode to life in all its ways. I've never written any comments on this sites (only on message boards) but I had to write something about this one. This movie is really special and intense, (and in a soft way, what is strange...).

Until the last plan which put the character, the director, and us to eternity... (I won't say more about this plan, but it has to be seen...)

I had to see this film because my Film History 2 professor made us watch it. My professor told us that he had just come across Joao and he loved this film and he loves all of the films he has seen by him. I have no idea why though. In my opinion this was three hours of nonsense. I sat there confused the entire time. The only thing I understood about the plot was the part about his son and even that has it's holes. I also think he is kind of a copy cat because I saw many of the same sexual things that Godard did in his films. In fact, by the end of this film I felt like I had just finished watching a Godard film. I came out of class feeling confused and disgusted. I do not recommend this film to anyone unless they love Extremely slow moving films, subtitles, and a completely confusing plot. The other reason I found this film hard to watch was because it was in Portuguese and I speak some Castillion Spanish so that combined with the English subtitles drove me nuts. I think most people won't find this a problem, but I did. Again I do not recommend this to anyone. I thought the independent film "The Item" was the worst movie I had ever seen, but then I saw this one. I hope this saves a lot of people from the same torture I had to endure.