Aniki Bóbó

Aniki-Bóbó (1942) is a film from the Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who reached a hundred years this year. It's the oldest director in activity.

This film is based on the story «Millionaire Boys», from a Portuguese writer, Rodrigues de Freitas.

It's a story about children, as an embryo from adult, whose both qualities and defects are revealed for us but in a simple form that all of people easily understand.

The name of the film went from a children game, a pun which form a balderdash, and they play that in the movie, «Aniki-Bébé, Aniki-Bóbó, passarinho tótó, berimbau, cavaquinho, Salomão, sacristão, tu és polícia, tu és ladrão». In Portuguese it makes any sense too, but it is the sound from this play of words that counts. In English it would be «Aniki-Baby, Aniki-Bóbó, goofy birdie, berimbau (a musical instrument), Solomon, sacristan, you are police, you are thief».

It was a anticipation from the Italian Neo-Realism and it had influences from the German Expressionism that Oliveira had seen in a Murnau movie, «Sunrise, a song of two humans» (1927). Oliveira travelled a lot in this period because he was a pilot in car racers, he practised Athletics and he was a trapeze artist, and, for this motifs, he had contact with many countries and movie exhibitions.

A movie about children and their simple expectations. A pure, ingenious film, that should be viewed by everyone who wishes to go back to those wonderful early years. In the beginning of his career, Oliveira shows an intelligent, sensitive, real world history in a true cinema pearl.

This is about as simple as a movie can be. Yet its simplicity is one of its strengths. This is a Portuguese film, spoken in Portuguese language. It's 100% made in Portugal. It was directed by Manoel de Oliveira, the world's oldest film director in activity and still doing films, even though he is now more than 100 years old. But, for someone in such an advanced age, he is in very good shape. That and the fact that he still has plans for the future is respectable, to say the least.

'Aniki-Bobó' is one of his earliest films. It wasn't well received when it came out, but time has been kinder to it. Truly a shame that, after all these years, this wonderful movie is still not available on DVD. The way I see it, they're waiting for the director to die to finally do it as a homage in his memory.

Our movie takes place in Porto city, the director's hometown. Porto has its own symbols, such as the Francesinhas, the Maria Pia bridge, the Port wine and the ex-libris Torre dos Clérigos. The movie is masterfully filmed, with great sceneries and almost entirely filmed in natural settings.

This classic film in black & white is about poor children in the streets of Porto and near the Douro River, where they live adventures, play games, socialize, use their imagination and sometimes have conflicts. It's a take on a childhood that has disappeared today, being pure, poetic, human, nostalgic, charming, funny and dramatic.

The movie's title comes from a rhyme of a children's game, which was already mentioned by one the reviewers here, so I won't say it all over again. As for the shop, (Loja das Tentações), it means "Shop of Temptations" in Portuguese.

Each cast member does a fine portrayal. In fact, this movie is almost entirely acted by kids. The kids have different personalities (for example: Carlitos is shy and reserved, Eduardo is naughty and the ruffian one, the little kid who is constantly stumbling is confident), but they get along well. It's not that they don't have some rivalries at times, but there is no swear, no major violence and no bad stuff.

This film anticipates the Italian neorealism in several ways. It's a small Portuguese masterpiece that should get more credit than it does. Almost everything in this movie works out in perfect harmony, despite its simplicity. And I like very much the typical accent from Porto city by the actors and the music in the film. It's difficult to understand at times, but with more viewings and if you put the sound louder, it's pretty easy to understand.

This should definitely be on Top 250.

Even today, when you visit the river margins of Porto and Gaia, looking at the rabelo boats (that used to carry the Port Wine from up-river), the iron bridges built by Eiffel and his pupils, and you sense Porto has been remade as a city for tourists, you can still sense Porto is, and was, the Portuguese "working capital", as represented in the magnificent movie Aniki Bobó, a sunny city of honest workers, kids playing happily and careless in the streets, old streets of stone and green... Aniki Bobó is a trip to a Porto that disappeared (most of the town depicted in the movie is now ruins), but still lives, through the lives and dreams of kids. Immortal.

A gang of youngsters run around the streets of Lisbon, playing, fighting and getting into trouble.

Manoel de Oliveira's first feature film is the Portuguese equivalent of an 'Our Gang' movie done right.The kids want what kids want, they put up with the incomprehensible and absolute authority of adults when they have to, and get away with what they can when the big folks aren't looking. They have their own mythology and pecking order, and Horácio Silva, as a typical kid, wants just to be accepted as part of the group. It's a truly charming movie. And de Oliveira didn't make another film for fifteen years. He said Salazar's government wouldn't let him, and given the fact that as of his death in 2015 at the age of 106, who was there to contradict him?