Alice

Everything in this movie is really well done.From the breathtaking performances from the leading actors, the amazing photography, the fantastic soundtrack(which is repetitive,but it relates to the sense of routine the main character has come to terms with) to the way that Lisbon is shot, it is a must-see for anyone who enjoys great dramatic movies.It is great to see a Portuguese movie that IS NOT a Manoel de Oliveira wannabe.It is also kind of minimalistic and slow, but it has it's own way of telling a story.This movie came as a surprise to me because I have never seen a Portuguese movie so well done.It is the supreme evidence that less is more.I can't wait to see Marco Martins' next project.

"Alice" is a sad and deep movie about a missing child. Mário (Nuno Lopes) is a father of a little girl that is missing and since then his life is a complete routine… Each day he does every little step he had done the day she disappeared. He walks in the same streets at the same time, he catches the same train and sees the same persons, and he goes to the same places (including her school). He's in deep despair, and as he can't do anything else, he does that routine hoping she will pass again in one of these places one day… Beside that he mounted a "vigilance structure" with a large number of video-cameras installed in some friends' houses which record some of those streets (he also have friends at the airport and metro security who lend him some vigilance tapes). He's really convicted that someday she will appear in one of these cameras…

It's a very sad and touching movie, because it's about a matter that is always hard to "talk about". The plot is very simple in its structure, because it's very straight and easy to follow, but at the same time it also gives us a feeling of complexity, of something that it's not explained: We don't know, for example, who are these characters or how did Alice disappear.

The movie is a bit slow and melancholic, but it's just the way it should be to a story like that. The music, which is a very beautiful piano piece, helps a lot to this ambiance of melancholy and deep sadness; but also the footage, because all film is shot in a grey light, as if an enormous cloud had arrived over Lisbon…Very nice too, and totally connected to the ambiance of the story.

The character of Nuno Lopes (Mário) is also very well portrayed, because it has the typical figure of a person which is lost in life: Sadness in his eyes, unshaved face, defeated posture, always a serious expression… Excellent job done by Nuno Lopes and the production of this movie!

The movies is great in all the point that Jorge TC mentioned. but still the movies is way to long and boring, nice soundtrack no doubt, but too much Manoel DE Oliveira wannabe. A good performance by the father, the girl in the shoe store was so pretty. The film is very sad and i think it was very oriented to the story of a Portuguese kid that disappeared and is parents say he was kidnapped. The film is made using some unknown Portuguese actors in the main parts but some more experimented felling the blanks. Not a bad acting and a sad story, to bad for the really slowing pace of the movie. If you liked this movie you really gonna like "Um Tiro No Escuro", way better movie.

Following the comments that have been posted up until now I also think this movie could be a little bit shorter or faster paced. Besides that...

Everything suits and fits the style that was intended. I'm not familiarized with the work of Manoel de Oliveira but I sure loved the consistency and emotional tension delivered by this fair example of good Portuguese movie production. Loved the cinematography and casting as well as the soundtrack which is nothing less than minimalist and straight to the point.

A sad story told in a "sad" way. The absence of dialog in some scenes is almost scary due to the tension involved around the baseline of the plot. The two main actors are capable of making us believe they are truly feeling broken inside, lost in their own senses, confused by an harsh reality, truly great work by everyone involved.

I'm not gonna write about the plot itself because if you're reading this you probably are already familiarized with it but I can say I was very depressed at the end and that's good in a drama.

By the end credits you feel ready to cry under your sheets. What you've just watched and felt is too catastrophic and heartbreaking to belong to reality and the scary thing is that you realized exactly that. There's little fiction about the whole thing...

7/10

This movie by Marco Martins is the portrait of two characters played by Nuno Lopes and Beatriz Batarda (best Portuguese actress ever) whose child disappeared, Alice. Watching "Alice" isn't watching one of the more award-winning Portuguese author movies, that keep saying nothing about Portuguese culture or society. "Alice" is truly a masterpiece. Not of directing, but the film as a whole is an impressive piece of art. The score played by Bernardo Sasseti is surely one of the best we've ever listened to, not just in Portuguese cinema but in others too. The music fully transmits the father's loss, and on the other half the cinematography, with the blue tone of color during the entire picture, haunts us with Alice's presence, beside she never appears in the entire picture, but she's the reason the movie happens. The movie is about hope, and absolutely about it's loss, because we fight so many in time to achieve something that sometimes we get tired and quit on the edge. "Alice" quits