A Herdade

Portuguese quality in its best. Great actors and plot.

So well said and exactly what I felt to this movie by jramalho on 8 October 2019, I don't think I need to add more words:

".... This is also because the characters are not as complex as the filmmakers seem to think they are, and the family relations, again, are unsurprising, verging on caricature. The fact that, for some reason, lighting cigarettes/smoking, pouring drinks and looking broodingly into the horizon seem to have been the major acting directions to create all sorts of different tensions does not help (although the lighting is great). You can use those crutches a few times, but when its done all the time it doesn't work. I do not mind excruciatingly slow or long movies, but there is no reason for this film to be either of those things, it might actually benefit from a re-edit."

I rest my case.

A Film from the sixties in the XXI century. Obvious and endless...

The Domain (A Herdade) is a movie about a rich landowner that lives in south bank of river Tagus, in the Alentejo region. This movie depicts the portuguese contemporany history from before 25 April Revolution, during the dictatoship government of Marcelo Caetano until 1991 in a democratic time. This movie centers in the character of João Fernandes played by Albano Jeronimo in one of his great performances and his relations with workers and relatives. The photograghy is also very well done with great landscapes, beutifully filmed.

In a country where there is little investment in culture, it is really amazing to see such an amazing portuguese work.

The actrors are impressive, the camera work brilliant and the photography stunning.

There are a lot of smart details that might not be obvious for the mainstream viewer but that I absolutely loved, like the motif of the horse (which decline reflects the familiy one) and that the moonlight in the night sequences always lights the person in power within the scene.

The only downside in my view is that if the viewer is not portuguese, it can have more difficulty understanding the historical context. However, this movie also deals with timeless issues like family, love, freedom and power.