Un film parlé

This movie had elements I really liked but it looked like three different films thrown together. I really wish the writer and director had focused on one of them instead of making, what seemed like, three different movies.

The first portion is like a travelogue where a nice Portuguese history teacher takes her cute young daughter to see the sites in Egypt, Athens, and other ancient locales. This wasn't especially exciting, but the acting and style of these visits made them oddly compelling and sweet.

Then, abruptly, the scene switches to a table across from the mother and daughter on the ship. At the table are three famous and successful European women and the captain, John Malkovich. All speak their respective languages (Greek, Italian, English and French) but seem to understand each other. Their conversations, to me, seem rather philosophical and lack any real depth--as the characters talk about grand ideas but give little information about themselves. It reminded me a lot of the sort of conversations you might have heard in the French salons of the mid 18th century--interesting but after a while rather bland.

The third movie VERY VERY abruptly begins after the Portuguese lady and her daughter join the others at the captain's table. Within minutes, the boat is blown up by terrorists. All, but possibly the Portuguese lady and her kid, survive--what an abrupt and unnecessary downer! Overall, the acting is pretty good (though Malkovich doesn't seem at all like a real ship's captain) and the story has excellent PIECES--but the whole just isn't much fun to watch. I do understand that the film deliberately juxtaposes the mother/child and ancient civilizations (symbolizing the heights of civilization)with the Nihilistic terrorist attack. I understand, but don't particularly like this contrast.

I highly recommend this movie for anyone with an open mind and patience. My own enjoyment of it was further enhanced by my love of languages, zeal for seeking subtext, and boredom with conventional film clichés. If you're like me in this respect, I think you'll enjoy this film. If you're looking for a thrill ride or expect one of the standard narrative forms, you will not.

The film behaves like the sea it frequently depicts. Lilting, undulating, splashing, and crashing randomly on its poetically simple story line: a Portuguese woman and her daughter set out on a cruise to meet their husband/father in Bombay. Along the way, they stop in various cities and have conversations about the history of the places they're visiting.

At first viewing, the films seems like a mixture of luxuriously long shots of ships and waves, stilted conversations between wooden actors, random scenes with strange editing, and almost no musical score. But the more I think about the film, the more the subtle meanings haunt me. The film was not an "upper", but I can't help smiling when I think about it.

I think the point was this: Through its academic recitation of history, a mother's explanations to her child, and an unsettling dose of present day reality, this movie contextualizes life in a way no other film I know of does. Good and Evil brought full circle? The grand flaw of humanity laid bare? An excercise in audience-manipulation? Whichever: Very rewarding.

A Talking Picture winds through the Mediterranean world at the leisurely pace of a tourist, taking in the sights, basking in the glow of civilization and its glories. Its director, Manoel de Oliveira, is not concerned with incident, with plot - he's concerned with ideas, with conversation. His movie is not called A Talking Picture for nothing; it is full of talking, some worth listening to and some not. Most of the worthwhile verbiage comes from a character named Rosa Maria (Leonor Silveira), a Portuguese history professor on a cruise with her young daughter (Filipa de Almeida). The mother-and-daughter are de Oliveira's device for presenting his ideas - the daughter asks elementary questions and the mother answers them, and through this simple back-and-forth, occasionally joined by other characters, de Oliveira creates the educational narration to go with his slide-show of the important sites of the extended Mediterranean world - Pompeii, The Acropolis, St. Sophia's, the Pyramids. Or maybe educational isn't the right word. De Oliveira doesn't seem as interested in informing us as he is in reminding us. The film doesn't take on any more of a professorial air than Rosa Maria does; Rosa Maria doesn't make lofty pronouncements and neither does the movie. The director's purpose is to share his appreciation for the myths, the legends, the monuments of Western Civilization, and he does so with the right kind of humbleness. It's only as the film reaches its climax that we begin to realize how darkened by uncertainty, even foreboding, de Oliveira's view of things is.

The film veers away from its pleasing, leisurely travelogue structure in the later passages, focusing instead on a group of rich, famous women entertaining, and being entertained by, the (presumably) charming ship's captain, played by the smug John Malkovich. It's here that some of the movie's charm falls away and it begins smelling of pompousness: the rich women all sit around chattering about themselves, making political observations, acting as mouthpieces for de Oliveira. The movie's whole sense of space becomes strangled in the ship's dining room; the expansive Mediterranean vistas are replaced by simply staged shots of Malkovich, Catherine Deneuve, Irene Papas and the Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli all sitting at the table being very witty (at least they think they are). The picture is saved in the end by Papas, whose character sings a lovely old Greek folk song, a song whose sad, simple melody seems a perfect ode to the civilization whose passing de Oliveira already seems in the process of mourning. Forces are at work to destroy the world de Oliveira loves: it's suddenly announced that the ship has a bomb on it, planted by terrorists at the last port-of-call.

The movie only becomes allegorical in the end, a sort of miniature Ship of Fools (take out the Porterian psychodrama and that's what you're left with) where the multilingual, erudite characters represent civilization and the bomb the looming specter of fundamentalism. For much of its run the film is less thematically over-bearing, less spatially shrunken. In its best moments it is barely more than a Discovery Channel documentary, a tour of the significant historic sites of the Mediterranean, but created by someone with a genuine sense of history, a love of civilization and all it stands for, and the ability to view things not politically or even morally but with the sagely eye of one who has made their peace with humanity (de Oliveira is almost a hundred after all). It's irrelevant whether A Talking Picture is good cinema or not - certainly there are better-staged movies - for what matters is not the form but the tone, the sense of embracing. The film's charms are modest but they're there, and they have nothing to do with the playing out of some dramatic story (when forced to deal with plot de Oliveira seems almost embarrassed). They have to do with loving words, loving places, loving ideas, and doing so unabashedly yet humbly.

Manoel de Oliveira's film, which I have seen on the big screen recently, has appeared as something thoroughly unpredictable and surprising alike. One word, however, appears primordially: EDUCATIONAL. Although you may perceive its educational aspects from different standpoints, three dimensions occur to evoke as primarily unique: geographical, cultural and social.

It seems inevitable to state at the beginning that the movie is far clearer to understand for the European viewers than for the other ones. Meanwhile, with the very opening shot at Lisbon, Portugal, two purely Portuguese characters set the tone for the film but, at the same time, prompt assumptions: what this is going to be all about. Maria Rosa (Leonor Silveira) with her daughter Maria Joana (Filipa de Almeida) set off for the journey to India in order to meet the husband/father. As they visit different places in the Mediterreanian of tremendous historical/geographical interest and significance, there is a contradictory undertone. It is particularly expressed in the way mother speaks to her daughter. In spite of the fact that she is an educated person at the university who wants to see the places on her own, what does such a learned stuff serve in mother-little daughter talks? Meanwhile, the places, mute witnesses of glorious past, become their inspirational 'characters' including Pompei, Istanbul, Cairo and foremost, the city of Athens. There, they meet people, particularly an Orthodox priest who explains some complex facts of religious/historical/architectural importance. A scene worth noting is their visit at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. In some moments, the film becomes a guide book on screen. But geography somehow appears to correspond to history and that is where its purpose is served...

The movie is supplied with cultural and social dimension when four supporting characters get on board the ship: three women and one man. Not only the fact that they are played by magnificent cast does supply the scenes with absorbing vitality but also the contents of their meeting (mind you) at a table which occurs to symbolize equality and openness to talk: a French Delfina (Catherine Deneuve), an Italian Francesca (Stefania Sandrelli), a Greek Helena (Irene Papas) and an American of Polish ancestry Captain Walesa (John Malkovich). Although their speak their own mother tongues, they can communicate perfectly and understand each other tremendously well. Note their names that carry significant meanings. And what do they talk about? Anything that may be interesting and boring at the same time: something that, on the one hand, serves the plot perfectly well and, on the other hand, misses the point. But the excellent camera-work and the performances beautifully allow a viewer be involved in these scenes.

One note on camera-work. Due to mostly static camera, they are first depicted together within the frame of the screen, as if visually, any viewer is an observer. Once Maria Rosa with her daughter join them at the table, we get closeups. Consequently, we turn up perceptional closer, amongst them. The pinnacle of emotions that their scene at the table is when Helena sings a beautiful song in Greek, a song that sounds like a manifest of identity and pride of greatness.

But the harmony that the Europeans could find is interrupted. Although the film presents a dangerous political aspect here, it does not fall into the temptation of being some judge on recent history, particularly the 2001 WTC tragedy. In all this, it presents a human desire, a human situation, a human tragedy. What would you do if someone took the doll you love so much...hears little Maria Joana from her mother...

The powerful effect of the finale leaves a viewer speechless...not through visual effects that would stun a viewer but through something that the film manages to inspire: empathy.

I saw this film at the Hong Kong International Film Festival 2004 and enjoyed it. There I've said it, only the second person to post a positive review for this film. Allow me to explain....

I don't consider this film to be boring, unless you are trying to compare it to the latest digitally blurred, DTS surround, multi million dollar blockbuster. You are missing the point of this film. It's about reality! When you next come out of the cinema or leave the TV with it's DVD surround system, having gorged on Hollywoods finest, go outside, get on a bus/train/plane. Take a seat and really observe those people around you. Then remember the characters in this film and you will notice that, lo and behold, parents do speak to their children in the way that Leonor Silveira speaks to her daughter. And that her daughter, played by Filipa de Almeida, saying over and over "Why is that.....?" is a true reflection of real life.

The interruptions to the history lessons of the mother, by the Greek Orthodox priest and the Portugese actor are also totally plausible and well observed by both actors and director together. As a 10 year old on a family holiday to historic Italy, having the same history lessons as shown in the film, I too bumped into a british actor/entertainer. He was on holiday with his wife in Rome, when my father asked him if he was in fact an actor. He said that he was, politely introduced his wife and shook hands with myself and my sisters, leaving us gobsmacked to have met a 'real' star.

As for the performances of the euro-stars in this film, again I say look at real life. I live in Hong Kong where 7 million of the population speak cantonese as their first language. In work and social situations both the chinese and westerners hold multi-lingual conversations. And I have been in situations in France and elsewhere in europe, when converstaions take place in more than one language. And yes, they are 'disjointed', but they do exist and occur a lot more often than people think.

Finally, the film itself. It is easy to watch and enjoy. The progress may seem a little 'regimental', but after all a day consists of a sunrise and a sunset. So for this film to punctuate each destination with a boat departure and the bow of the ship plowing the waves, does move things along. The ending was a bit short and sharp, but still reflected the style of the rest of the film in its realism. No long drawn out scenes of pandemonium or touching 'overacted' farewells.

So Hollywood please take note of this film, it may not pay big money, it may not get the sensive receptors buzzing. But, it shows realism, a flare for observation, and some boring bit's. Real life is like that, sorry if that is a shock to any celluloid junkies out there.

Rating 7.5/10