Un film parlé

There are many opinions listed here about the film itself from technical or artistic points of view or about whether it is interesting or boring etc.. My reaction is not about any of that. I have serious problems with this film's naive Eurocentric point of view, which, seems to me, adds up to a very troublesome and dangerous crusader mentality that breaks the world into a 'civilized' 'West' and the 'uncivilized' Rest. Don't misunderstand me, the idea is certainly not put in these many words, the film does have a nice politically correct surface --but simply look a bit deeper below the surface to see the way Africa is referred to, the direct and indirect ways 'Arabs' are pictured (not to mention the deeply ignorant way in which a whole world of Islamic cultures and civilizations are grouped under this term 'Arab' at one point), or the way the notion of civilization, its origins and its trajectory is depicted, the way terrorism is understood or pictured, and one can keep listing. Had this film been made in 1920s, I would have had less of a surprise reaction to it, but I mean, come on, we are talking 2003!

Consider the following excerpt for example. This is out of a scene where three main characters (three women, a Greek, an Italian, and a French -Papas, Sandrelli, & Deneuve, respectively) are having dinner with the ship's captain, an American man (Malkovich). You judge for yourself.

(French): Greece is still the cradle of civilization, and will be as long as the world goes around.

(Greek): It's a civilization that's been forgotten

(French): And with it fraternity and human rights, and the Utopian ideals of the French Revolution

(Italian): Which the United States later adopted

(American): And has reinforced

(Italian): Yes, but they're also being forgotten, as is happening on other continents, like Europe, not to speak of Africa!

(Greek): No civilization lasts forever…That's how Alexander the Great saw it when, under the influence of Aristotle, he decided to found a universal library… But what I find most curious is the case of the Arabs, who, having spread Greek culture in Europe and beyond, were the ones to destroy it, burning all the books in the blindness of their religious fervor.

(Italian): The beginnings of fundamentalism, which is everywhere today…

(Greek): What haunts the Arab world nowadays is the development of the West, with its many technical advances and scientific progress. This creates religious prejudice, which is what divides us…

PS, I know I said I won't explain, but for anyone who still takes seriously the story that the library was made by Alexander and then burnt by the Arabs, why not take a look at this Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Library_of_Alexandria or better yet, at this article: http://www.bede.org.uk/Library2.htm

Manoel de Oliveira's film, which I have seen on the big screen recently, has appeared as something thoroughly unpredictable and surprising alike. One word, however, appears primordially: EDUCATIONAL. Although you may perceive its educational aspects from different standpoints, three dimensions occur to evoke as primarily unique: geographical, cultural and social.

It seems inevitable to state at the beginning that the movie is far clearer to understand for the European viewers than for the other ones. Meanwhile, with the very opening shot at Lisbon, Portugal, two purely Portuguese characters set the tone for the film but, at the same time, prompt assumptions: what this is going to be all about. Maria Rosa (Leonor Silveira) with her daughter Maria Joana (Filipa de Almeida) set off for the journey to India in order to meet the husband/father. As they visit different places in the Mediterreanian of tremendous historical/geographical interest and significance, there is a contradictory undertone. It is particularly expressed in the way mother speaks to her daughter. In spite of the fact that she is an educated person at the university who wants to see the places on her own, what does such a learned stuff serve in mother-little daughter talks? Meanwhile, the places, mute witnesses of glorious past, become their inspirational 'characters' including Pompei, Istanbul, Cairo and foremost, the city of Athens. There, they meet people, particularly an Orthodox priest who explains some complex facts of religious/historical/architectural importance. A scene worth noting is their visit at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. In some moments, the film becomes a guide book on screen. But geography somehow appears to correspond to history and that is where its purpose is served...

The movie is supplied with cultural and social dimension when four supporting characters get on board the ship: three women and one man. Not only the fact that they are played by magnificent cast does supply the scenes with absorbing vitality but also the contents of their meeting (mind you) at a table which occurs to symbolize equality and openness to talk: a French Delfina (Catherine Deneuve), an Italian Francesca (Stefania Sandrelli), a Greek Helena (Irene Papas) and an American of Polish ancestry Captain Walesa (John Malkovich). Although their speak their own mother tongues, they can communicate perfectly and understand each other tremendously well. Note their names that carry significant meanings. And what do they talk about? Anything that may be interesting and boring at the same time: something that, on the one hand, serves the plot perfectly well and, on the other hand, misses the point. But the excellent camera-work and the performances beautifully allow a viewer be involved in these scenes.

One note on camera-work. Due to mostly static camera, they are first depicted together within the frame of the screen, as if visually, any viewer is an observer. Once Maria Rosa with her daughter join them at the table, we get closeups. Consequently, we turn up perceptional closer, amongst them. The pinnacle of emotions that their scene at the table is when Helena sings a beautiful song in Greek, a song that sounds like a manifest of identity and pride of greatness.

But the harmony that the Europeans could find is interrupted. Although the film presents a dangerous political aspect here, it does not fall into the temptation of being some judge on recent history, particularly the 2001 WTC tragedy. In all this, it presents a human desire, a human situation, a human tragedy. What would you do if someone took the doll you love so much...hears little Maria Joana from her mother...

The powerful effect of the finale leaves a viewer speechless...not through visual effects that would stun a viewer but through something that the film manages to inspire: empathy.

This movie isn't going to shock you. This movie is not going to "entertain" you. This movie is going to softly talk to you, while cruising around the most beautiful places of the world, and will bring you to a sudden, explosive, unexpected ending. I never saw a De Oliveira movie before this, although he is considered by Italian critics one of the most important directors alive. Well i guess i should check his previous works (and there's a lot to see). This is a film for those who want to FEEL the script and listen to interesting conversations that sometimes can enlighten and other times, well, the viewer can feel the deep depression of a reality that gives us no choice but live as we are, no hope to leave our little selves to come to something bigger. And then again, who wouldn't want to sit and have dinner talking with Stefania Sandrelli, Catherine Deneuve, Irene Papas and a charming Captain Malkovich? (And the fact that they're all speaking in their own languages makes their pout pourri of philosophy and humour really UNIVERSAL). This filmed talked to me, while i could do nothing but sit still and wait and listen and watch and then give one of the most sincere applauses i ever could give to a movie. "You'd better grab a hold of something, it's simple but is true. If you dont stop to smell the roses now they might end up on you!" (HUSKER DU)

This movie had elements I really liked but it looked like three different films thrown together. I really wish the writer and director had focused on one of them instead of making, what seemed like, three different movies.

The first portion is like a travelogue where a nice Portuguese history teacher takes her cute young daughter to see the sites in Egypt, Athens, and other ancient locales. This wasn't especially exciting, but the acting and style of these visits made them oddly compelling and sweet.

Then, abruptly, the scene switches to a table across from the mother and daughter on the ship. At the table are three famous and successful European women and the captain, John Malkovich. All speak their respective languages (Greek, Italian, English and French) but seem to understand each other. Their conversations, to me, seem rather philosophical and lack any real depth--as the characters talk about grand ideas but give little information about themselves. It reminded me a lot of the sort of conversations you might have heard in the French salons of the mid 18th century--interesting but after a while rather bland.

The third movie VERY VERY abruptly begins after the Portuguese lady and her daughter join the others at the captain's table. Within minutes, the boat is blown up by terrorists. All, but possibly the Portuguese lady and her kid, survive--what an abrupt and unnecessary downer! Overall, the acting is pretty good (though Malkovich doesn't seem at all like a real ship's captain) and the story has excellent PIECES--but the whole just isn't much fun to watch. I do understand that the film deliberately juxtaposes the mother/child and ancient civilizations (symbolizing the heights of civilization)with the Nihilistic terrorist attack. I understand, but don't particularly like this contrast.

A Talking Picture winds through the Mediterranean world at the leisurely pace of a tourist, taking in the sights, basking in the glow of civilization and its glories. Its director, Manoel de Oliveira, is not concerned with incident, with plot - he's concerned with ideas, with conversation. His movie is not called A Talking Picture for nothing; it is full of talking, some worth listening to and some not. Most of the worthwhile verbiage comes from a character named Rosa Maria (Leonor Silveira), a Portuguese history professor on a cruise with her young daughter (Filipa de Almeida). The mother-and-daughter are de Oliveira's device for presenting his ideas - the daughter asks elementary questions and the mother answers them, and through this simple back-and-forth, occasionally joined by other characters, de Oliveira creates the educational narration to go with his slide-show of the important sites of the extended Mediterranean world - Pompeii, The Acropolis, St. Sophia's, the Pyramids. Or maybe educational isn't the right word. De Oliveira doesn't seem as interested in informing us as he is in reminding us. The film doesn't take on any more of a professorial air than Rosa Maria does; Rosa Maria doesn't make lofty pronouncements and neither does the movie. The director's purpose is to share his appreciation for the myths, the legends, the monuments of Western Civilization, and he does so with the right kind of humbleness. It's only as the film reaches its climax that we begin to realize how darkened by uncertainty, even foreboding, de Oliveira's view of things is.

The film veers away from its pleasing, leisurely travelogue structure in the later passages, focusing instead on a group of rich, famous women entertaining, and being entertained by, the (presumably) charming ship's captain, played by the smug John Malkovich. It's here that some of the movie's charm falls away and it begins smelling of pompousness: the rich women all sit around chattering about themselves, making political observations, acting as mouthpieces for de Oliveira. The movie's whole sense of space becomes strangled in the ship's dining room; the expansive Mediterranean vistas are replaced by simply staged shots of Malkovich, Catherine Deneuve, Irene Papas and the Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli all sitting at the table being very witty (at least they think they are). The picture is saved in the end by Papas, whose character sings a lovely old Greek folk song, a song whose sad, simple melody seems a perfect ode to the civilization whose passing de Oliveira already seems in the process of mourning. Forces are at work to destroy the world de Oliveira loves: it's suddenly announced that the ship has a bomb on it, planted by terrorists at the last port-of-call.

The movie only becomes allegorical in the end, a sort of miniature Ship of Fools (take out the Porterian psychodrama and that's what you're left with) where the multilingual, erudite characters represent civilization and the bomb the looming specter of fundamentalism. For much of its run the film is less thematically over-bearing, less spatially shrunken. In its best moments it is barely more than a Discovery Channel documentary, a tour of the significant historic sites of the Mediterranean, but created by someone with a genuine sense of history, a love of civilization and all it stands for, and the ability to view things not politically or even morally but with the sagely eye of one who has made their peace with humanity (de Oliveira is almost a hundred after all). It's irrelevant whether A Talking Picture is good cinema or not - certainly there are better-staged movies - for what matters is not the form but the tone, the sense of embracing. The film's charms are modest but they're there, and they have nothing to do with the playing out of some dramatic story (when forced to deal with plot de Oliveira seems almost embarrassed). They have to do with loving words, loving places, loving ideas, and doing so unabashedly yet humbly.