Blanche-Neige

It's fundamental ideia is the choice between the horrors darkened by emotions or the beauty enlightened by reason. The director makes his choice and invites the audience to choose.

The movie has an original communication technique. And, like all artistic expression, may or may not reach the spectator. As it is so fresh and a violent cut on the established way of communication through cinema, it produces a lot of negative response.

Because it's so original, because it's Wasler adaptation is so beautiful, I recommend this movie as a philosophical experience.

For me it is very difficult to talk about this film, I hated it so much that it is very hard to me to have an opinion, i just feel like writing curse words, and start a huge rant on how bad this film is.

Basically in this version of the classic "Snow White" we are presented with a black screen from start to finish and, about a dozen characters narrating the story, this movie is incredibly bad, and a huge waste of time.

I strongly believe this isB he worst movie Portuguese of all time and one of the worst I've ever seen, surely.

There isn't anything good about this movie. My vote is 1.

Title (Portugal) - "Branca de Neve" ("Snow White")

The author shows that we can «see» a movie even if there are not images in the screen: you can «see» what happens following the dialogs and the description of the scenes. Like a story before sleep in a dark room. Anyway, there are some color plans (a few minutes): clowds on the sky, stone figures and César Monteiro itself in front of a wonderfull tree in the Lisbon's botanic garden.

Some people can think: "watch a movie is always an art experience, cinema is art, after all". Yes, that's right, but not as much as this one! This movie is far away from the common concept of cinema, it's beyond the concept of "let's watch a movie and eat some popcorn to entertain ourselves"!

It's original, provocative and tries to mess up with our most deeply concepts. César Monteiro's filmography is full of these ingredients, but in this particular case, it goes to the extreme, because it changes one of the most important concepts of cinema: To Watch something! When you listen to a song, you don't expect to see anything, just listen to it… when you read a book, you know you will have to imagine all the characters' faces, all the colors, all the scenarios…When you watch a movie you're expecting to see all the story, what is really happening on the screen. But here you don't, you just watch a black screen almost all the time!

I have to say that I watched this movie at the theater when it was released here in Portugal (there were just more 5/6 persons at the theater!) and I can tell you it was strange! I didn't feel like watching a movie, but as I was a part of some weird artistic experience. Believe me, it's really bizarre to be locked in a dark room for 75 minutes just hearing voices and looking to a dark screen! Sometimes I just felt suffocated! But if anyone asks me if it was bad, I will say it wasn't, because I see it as a unique experience, one that I will remember for all my life.

"Branca de neve" is the greatest movie I saw or heard in the noir genre, because it is almost filmed in pitch black. João César Monteiro has combined the best that radio has to offer with different shades of black. This way we pay much more attention to the dialogues. The director is considered a genius by a small minority in Portugal and I finally understood why, because he never cared for the pressure around him. At an interview after the movie he told the press that he couldn't care less about the people opinion about the movie and that's the way things should be. I rather pay to watch a dark screen than to watch a movie starring Val Kilmer. Enjoy the darkness...