Lisbon Story

I've spent the last few days trying to come up with the perfect description for this movie, and I'm afraid another reviewer beat me to it: "This movie is good for the soul."

This is the perfect movie for the uninspired artist who is suffering from malaise, writer's block, disenchantment or perhaps just an overall pissy attitude toward the world. It's absolutely beautiful. The actors are endearing, the story is charming (though not without a few poignant touches of darkness & spookiness), and the music is downright hypnotizing.

This film gave me a big smile from beginning to end. The humour is what I call "real life silly"--these are things that have happened to us all at one point or another, and to watch the characters' reactions is hilarious, because we say to ourselves, "That could've been me!"

But overall this is a movie about love, not necessarily between people but perhaps between a person and a city or a person and a camera or a person and a microphone. It's gorgeous in its ambiguity because, like I said up front, it can inspire any of us out of our deepest rut.

In past reviews of Wim Wenders' work I have been brutally uncomplimentary; he has often struck me as a meandering type who lacks the ability to pull his visions together coherently. But this film has given me a completely new appreciation for his lucidity and ability to convey a profound (yet abstract) thought. The two monologues at the end carry perhaps the strongest messages I've ever seen on film. Simple but resounding.

I give LISBON STORY 10 stars, something which I rarely do even to my favourite films. But this movie is literally perfect, I can't criticize a single thing (edit: OK, after thinking real hard, I suppose there's one flaw... the guitarist's fingers don't exactly match up with what he's playing in one scene. But I think we can all agree that's nitpicking). Enjoy!

The existential issue of the director Fredrich who doesn't succeed to finish his movie is something much beyond the understanding of most of the people, including myself. The facts that (1) he quits his house to live in a kind of Romiseta, (2) doesn't make any attempt to meet Phillip Winter to whom he asked to come to Lisbon, (3) is quickly convinced by the Phillip arguments to finish his film, these three facts suggest me that his problem is not an existential problem, but a kind of madness. The way Lisbon is shown through the eyes of Phillip is very nice. It reminds me scenes my youth in Alexandria (Egypt), and how were old neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro almost a century ago. The atmosphere of the music of Madredeus is magic, and Phillip has good reasons to fall in love with Teresa Salgueiro, I would fall in love with her also. The film deserves to be seen by a spectator who is looking for a story which will leave him with more questions than answers, in the company of friends with whom he will try to find answers.

"The thought is getting born blind, but it knows what is watching".. Today I saw the movie again. Actually, it was again, and again..for I don't know how many times since Wenders made it.

Who wouldn't get in love with Portugal, after seeing it..The people and country of Saudade. I won't explain you what it means, only real Portuguese know that. And even if I would like to explain,it is pointless..That can't be described, but maybe you can recognize it in Teresa's voice and landscape of Tejo who is the only witness of their lives. This story don't need actors to tell it because it is not only story between Fillip and Friedrich, but about the secrets that are hiding in wrinkles of people faces, in old aqueduct and walls of houses in Lisbon.

I hope that you get that desire to see and hear those secrets as much as I did.

Wenders has shot a visual gem with rich sound and music, whose story-line and entire raison-d'etre is a tribute to film-making itself. Every frame is composed, dramatic, and the complementary colour theme of blue-yellow-red (predominantly sky blue) is adhered to so closely, it's phenemonal and delectable.

Waiting for the supposed main character Friedrich, played by Patrick Bauchau, to show up in the film, eventually becomes a metaphor for those times in life when one waits for the "main event", and it's a long time coming. Life is what happens while we're waiting for life to begin.

Rudiger Vogler's Phillip gets to deliver a wonderful lecture to all pretentious artists everywhere who've lost their way, and to art film-makers like Friedrich, especially. We're so happy to hear him dressing down Freidrich, and doing so more articulately than we could have done, it gives this fairly slow-moving film a wonderful sense of resolution and direction.

A very human film about the ordinary, the magic in the ordinary, and the ability of film to convey that magic. Loved it.

This movie is, without the question, the most beautiful movie ever written about the city of Lisbon. It shows on the inside, all the old houses and narrow streets that Portuguese people hold so dearly...

The plot is pretty simple: Phillip Winter (Rüdiger Vogler) is a sound ingeneer for a German director who moved to Lisbon, and he receives a letter from his friend to come to Portugal and help him do this movie about the capital, through sound capturing of all the people, small noises, and even feelings that float in the air. Vogler accepts the challenge, and goes on a trip to Lisbon.

In the city, he gets acquainted with a local band, Madredeus (who perform a beautiful soundtrack for Lisbon Story), and some of the local kids... After a few weeks, he realizes he's in love with this town, so full of charm and emotion all over, and the rest I leave for you to see. There is also a bit of romance, between the main actor and Teresa, the lead singer of Madredeus (which is, in fact, a beautiful Portuguese girl).

Wim Wenders, as always, has great directing on this one, showing the places that we never thought that would contain so much beauty as they do. He's a great director, and this is a great picture, in a way of a documentary, but greatly captured.

Strong feelings are expected. Wonderful movie.