In the darkness of a rural night, a gypsy clan gathers to mourn their beloved patriarch's in a ritual celebrated through music and dance.In the darkness of a rural night, a gypsy clan gathers to mourn their beloved patriarch's in a ritual celebrated through music and dance.In the darkness of a rural night, a gypsy clan gathers to mourn their beloved patriarch's in a ritual celebrated through music and dance.
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The film begins at a gypsy funeral. An old man has died. His wife sits in a chair facing him, staring at him, as flamenco-inspired guitar music plays and we see a number of dances from other gypsies in the "clan". Eventually the camera circles around and around only the old couple, as we see the woman imagining the man alive again, young, then imagining herself young, too. As we focus on a pendant she's wearing, we go back in time, as the woman replays in her mind how she and her partner met in her village when she was a young girl and the man was traveling from town to town by himself putting on a kind of mime/magic/comedy show.
Manôushe is certainly a mixed bag. There are moments of excellence and a number of very unfortunate decisions. It's worth seeing if you're a fan of fantasy and the surreal, and at times its very Felliniesque, but it's important to watch with appropriately lowered expectations.
At least the first fifteen-minutes or so of the film feature a few pieces of music by Paco de Lucía. As would be expected, the songs are incredible. They build up a fantastic mood for the opening, punctuated by some interesting, very deliberately paced dancing. To this point, Manôushe feels more like a filmed version of a ballet. Once we go to the extended flashback, which takes up the next 45 minutes or so, we get another snippet of a fine Paco de Lucía piece, but after that point, as the film gradually becomes more Felliniesque, the music becomes unpleasantly cheesy. It's mostly a combination of synthesizers and very hokey percussion. This is all made worse by the contrast with the initially amazing score. From what I could tell, only de Lucía receives a composer credit, but it's difficult to believe that he wrote the later music.
Director Luiz Begazo is admirable in his aspirations of weirdness. The characters in the flashback gradually become more bizarre, until we're in full fantasy mode by the 45-minute mark. We first see a lot of the human characters in a church, complete with a Dom DeLuise-looking priest. At this point, some very interesting sound design enters the film, as dialogue is frequently drowned out by sound effects of animals and various environmental "atmospheres". Some of the sounds work as leit-motifs for some characters.
On the other hand, another problem due to contrast arises with the fantasy material. Although Begazo seems to be shooting for a strong surrealism, during the forest scenes he relies heavily on fantasy clichés, such as faeries, goblins and such. During the surrealist human interaction, another contrast highlights flaws in that the overall story, which is basically a romance, is very pedestrian and uneventful. Even the costume design, which is marvelously colorful and strange on the surface, turns out to be very traditional when you look at it analytically.
But still, I'd rather have wacky traditional costumes than non-wacky traditional costumes, and other aspects of the production design are pretty quirky without a traditional base. There's also some fantastic cinematography throughout the film, and especially the last sequence stands out as breathtakingly odd and beautiful.
The biggest flaw, however, is that the story just isn't very cohesive or engaging. It feels a bit like four or five mostly unrelated shorts strung together. You've got the gypsy dance/funeral opener, the Felliniesque small town portrait, the journey through the forest, the "climax", and the return to the modern setting. The climax should be somewhat suspenseful, but it's instead very bland. It probably doesn't help that there isn't much dialogue in the film, and there are long sections of posturing that seem more like choreography than plot. One of the more interesting sub-sections, involving the arrest and "torture" of the main male character and a simultaneous glimpse of the main female character's home is taken up and then abandoned within a few minutes. Beyond that, the man's mime/magic/comedy show is pretty banal, and the woman is pretty "blank" much of the time.
Like I said, it's a mixed bag. The strangest fact about Manôushe is that this is Begazo's only film according to the Internet Movie Database. Manôushe at least showed great promise for an interesting career. I wonder what happened to Begazo.
Manôushe is certainly a mixed bag. There are moments of excellence and a number of very unfortunate decisions. It's worth seeing if you're a fan of fantasy and the surreal, and at times its very Felliniesque, but it's important to watch with appropriately lowered expectations.
At least the first fifteen-minutes or so of the film feature a few pieces of music by Paco de Lucía. As would be expected, the songs are incredible. They build up a fantastic mood for the opening, punctuated by some interesting, very deliberately paced dancing. To this point, Manôushe feels more like a filmed version of a ballet. Once we go to the extended flashback, which takes up the next 45 minutes or so, we get another snippet of a fine Paco de Lucía piece, but after that point, as the film gradually becomes more Felliniesque, the music becomes unpleasantly cheesy. It's mostly a combination of synthesizers and very hokey percussion. This is all made worse by the contrast with the initially amazing score. From what I could tell, only de Lucía receives a composer credit, but it's difficult to believe that he wrote the later music.
Director Luiz Begazo is admirable in his aspirations of weirdness. The characters in the flashback gradually become more bizarre, until we're in full fantasy mode by the 45-minute mark. We first see a lot of the human characters in a church, complete with a Dom DeLuise-looking priest. At this point, some very interesting sound design enters the film, as dialogue is frequently drowned out by sound effects of animals and various environmental "atmospheres". Some of the sounds work as leit-motifs for some characters.
On the other hand, another problem due to contrast arises with the fantasy material. Although Begazo seems to be shooting for a strong surrealism, during the forest scenes he relies heavily on fantasy clichés, such as faeries, goblins and such. During the surrealist human interaction, another contrast highlights flaws in that the overall story, which is basically a romance, is very pedestrian and uneventful. Even the costume design, which is marvelously colorful and strange on the surface, turns out to be very traditional when you look at it analytically.
But still, I'd rather have wacky traditional costumes than non-wacky traditional costumes, and other aspects of the production design are pretty quirky without a traditional base. There's also some fantastic cinematography throughout the film, and especially the last sequence stands out as breathtakingly odd and beautiful.
The biggest flaw, however, is that the story just isn't very cohesive or engaging. It feels a bit like four or five mostly unrelated shorts strung together. You've got the gypsy dance/funeral opener, the Felliniesque small town portrait, the journey through the forest, the "climax", and the return to the modern setting. The climax should be somewhat suspenseful, but it's instead very bland. It probably doesn't help that there isn't much dialogue in the film, and there are long sections of posturing that seem more like choreography than plot. One of the more interesting sub-sections, involving the arrest and "torture" of the main male character and a simultaneous glimpse of the main female character's home is taken up and then abandoned within a few minutes. Beyond that, the man's mime/magic/comedy show is pretty banal, and the woman is pretty "blank" much of the time.
Like I said, it's a mixed bag. The strangest fact about Manôushe is that this is Begazo's only film according to the Internet Movie Database. Manôushe at least showed great promise for an interesting career. I wonder what happened to Begazo.
A traveling gypsy performer comes to a small town and falls in love with a woman, despite resistance from her father and other townspeople. There is little dialogue, and what is said seems to be gibberish. The plot is quite simple and easy to follow. The soundtrack by Paco de Luzia is absolutely incredible and adds greatly to the depth of the film. The production quality is obviously very low but the movie has great charm, and many of the scenes have a beautiful, seductive quality. Definitely worth watching if you can get your hands on a copy.
If you find gypsies interesting with their garish and strange costumes, and you like flamenco music, then this is a pleasant diversion for you.
The plot is simple. A man dies, and his widow imagines their life as it started. Pretty common, you would say, but then this is about gypsies.
When using stop-smoking products like the patch or the new pills, they warn you of vivid dreams. If you experience them, then you don't uses the products at night. The first night I had a dream that was very close to the imaginings in this film. It was just as fantastic and colorful.
Things get a little bizarre at times. I think I saw a chicken with a man's head. Then there is a little Midsummer Night's Dream with fairies and other forest creatures.
The print seemed a little fuzzy. I don't know if that was intentional, but it was distracting.
The plot is simple. A man dies, and his widow imagines their life as it started. Pretty common, you would say, but then this is about gypsies.
When using stop-smoking products like the patch or the new pills, they warn you of vivid dreams. If you experience them, then you don't uses the products at night. The first night I had a dream that was very close to the imaginings in this film. It was just as fantastic and colorful.
Things get a little bizarre at times. I think I saw a chicken with a man's head. Then there is a little Midsummer Night's Dream with fairies and other forest creatures.
The print seemed a little fuzzy. I don't know if that was intentional, but it was distracting.
This is another rare bird, indeed. The notes on the DVD box suggested it is part Fellini and part "Wizard of Oz" in style. It's a Brazilian flick, and so I believe the language that is (sparsely) spoken is Portuguese, although the setting is a long-ago, once-upon-a-time Spain.
The first 10 or15 minutes consists of a long (rather too long for my taste) prolog showing a gypsy funeral, with no dialog and consisting almost entirely of Flamenco-style strutting and posturing. I was a bit worried that the entire film would turn out to be in this style, but a flashback brings a radical, and a bit jarring, change in style as we're transported to a sort of storybook Spain of the past where the two lovers first meet. This scene is, as the DVD notes suggested, strongly Felliniesque, with grotesque characters exhibiting various human vices in the most outlandish and cartoon-like manner. Very well performed, directed, and produced, it's some of the best faux Fellini I've seen.
We subsequently experience another shift in style as the escaping lovers, followed by the girl's possessive, mercenary father and a simple-minded servant, find themselves in an enchanted forest. Not really much like "The Wizard of Oz," as the DVD notes suggested, these scenes are more in the nature of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and it seems to me that Max Reinhardt's 1935 film of that play is the main inspiration. The elements of that production are much in evidence, i.e. young lovers, clumsy buffoons, goblins, faeries, and elves. There's even a character that's the spitting image of Puck.
A bit inconsistent in style, and low in production budget, this nevertheless shows what can be done with limited resources and lots of imagination. Another great example of this can be found in the work of the Canadian director Guy Maddin. I found "Manôushe" to be great fun to watch. I'm glad to have discovered it, and hope to see more interesting projects from writer-director Luiz Begazo.
The first 10 or15 minutes consists of a long (rather too long for my taste) prolog showing a gypsy funeral, with no dialog and consisting almost entirely of Flamenco-style strutting and posturing. I was a bit worried that the entire film would turn out to be in this style, but a flashback brings a radical, and a bit jarring, change in style as we're transported to a sort of storybook Spain of the past where the two lovers first meet. This scene is, as the DVD notes suggested, strongly Felliniesque, with grotesque characters exhibiting various human vices in the most outlandish and cartoon-like manner. Very well performed, directed, and produced, it's some of the best faux Fellini I've seen.
We subsequently experience another shift in style as the escaping lovers, followed by the girl's possessive, mercenary father and a simple-minded servant, find themselves in an enchanted forest. Not really much like "The Wizard of Oz," as the DVD notes suggested, these scenes are more in the nature of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and it seems to me that Max Reinhardt's 1935 film of that play is the main inspiration. The elements of that production are much in evidence, i.e. young lovers, clumsy buffoons, goblins, faeries, and elves. There's even a character that's the spitting image of Puck.
A bit inconsistent in style, and low in production budget, this nevertheless shows what can be done with limited resources and lots of imagination. Another great example of this can be found in the work of the Canadian director Guy Maddin. I found "Manôushe" to be great fun to watch. I'm glad to have discovered it, and hope to see more interesting projects from writer-director Luiz Begazo.
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- Manoushe: A Gypsy Love Story
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