Call Girl

There were very interesting things done here, some things not that common in Portuguese films, but other things i thought to be messy.

Its main flaw might be to try to be many things at the same time. It's not that it isn't possible, but it's not well solved here. So, we have someone honest, but immoral (his weak point), lots of corruption, and some redeeming issues (love?). It might be a film of social impact (Portugal SA made it 4 years ago, with a relative success), in America we might think of films such as 'Wall Street', 'All the president's men' or 'Wag the dog'. Can we link that to a noir driven construction? maybe. 'Wag the dog' did it. Here we have the detective, we have a 'femme', maybe fatal. Let's talk about her:

The director (and i suppose the collective will of Portuguese film goers) is trying to define an image to our girl. She has talent, i think, she may have the looks if she's well used, but she's got to have a cinematic personality. By now, cinema gave us a full variety of female postures, it's a matter of choosing what suits her best. I personally don't think she may be Marylin Monroe, as it was hinted here, even though mixed with the idea of controlling woman as, say, Sharon Stone probably performed it in the beginning of the nineties. But i frankly think she might have been a Hitch's blond, but as a brunette (i personally think a Portuguese femme fatal wouldn't be brunette... this is intuition or preconception, i don't know). So, by now, i'd model Soraia Chaves after Novak, Hedren and Kelly. She would not suit the Hepburn-Hepburn-Roberts tradition, nor the parallel close shot tradition Falconetti-Karinna. All these women live much on the face, on the smile, on expression. Soraia sticks better, to my view, to the small moves, to the implicit actions, she is more Dietrich than Monroe. But she also has "sex stamped on her face" as Hitchcock might have said. Or maybe she has been misportraited so far in her short career. Vasconcelos compared her to Ava Gardner; it would be interesting to see Ava Gardner stick to her. Let us wait and see.

Back to the plot: we had the noir hints and the social flaws theme. But the game is opened, the mystery is gone, and besides the morality and real intentions of our girl, there's little more to find out. So the noir, which could work, is gone. As noir, i understand the ability to place the spectator behind the specific vision of a character (here that one might have been Ivo Canelas) and let the spectator know as much as that character but with the feeling that some outer force, god, superior character is moving the strings and pupeteering the whole action, out of our site. The fact that Canelas had in fact a past relation with Soraia Chaves could work perfectly in this logic of superior forces, fate... American cinema is exquisite in the way it handles with these things. In fact, just before i went to the theatre to watch this i had seen Ace in the Hole, by Wilder (a "non"? author) and this is all there: the ambiguity on whether Douglas is writing the story or not, and than who is writing it. A film has to come embedded on these deeper notions in order to fully work. Otherwise it's limp, incomplete. That's a lesson one can take from American cinema, and can't understand how Vasconcelos skipped it (since he wrote the story). So, from the moment the decision is to let the spectator get to know everything at stake, every move, on and of "stage", the interest in following this sticks to acting and directing. Here are the strong aspects of the film, which make the whole experience worthwhile. The last expression in Nicolau Breyner's face is heartbreaking, that ability Breyner had to tell us so much out of a face is something i'll keep with me wherever i go. The upper angle in that shot helps. And the whole direction is focused, much more than the storyline or the scriptwriting. The editing is not perfect, but it is competent, Vasconcelos has a very interesting way to "disapear" in order to bring out his stories and specific scenes (here he truly is what he intends to) so his moves are always subtle, and enough.

So, i believe we needed stronger writing here, to bring all this to another level, the kind of writing of 'Os imortais', which was much more clear, focused, and interesting. This one has problems with cinematic orthography, and it kills a good part of the experience

My opinion: 3/5 the acting and directing make up partially for the flaws

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This film tells us a story of high-society prostitution, corruption, power and money, but it is essentially a good portrait of Portuguese society nowadays! The plot is very well conceived and "touches" in some "crucial points" which are "rotten" in our society… We all know that money and sex are the "things" that make the world turn around, and this movie proves it clearly!

The plot is about the president of a little village, in the south Portugal between Alentejo and the Algarve, and a touristic project that he didn't want to approve because it would cause a major impact on the local environment. But behind this project there was an important multinational with too much power and they don't want to give up from the project, because there's too much money involved… so they use a dirty way to "catch him": They contract a high-society call girl, Maria (played by Soraia Chaves), to seduce the President Meireles (played by Nicolau Breyner) and control him to the point of making him sign the project. Beautiful as she is, Meireles was caught from the first moment! He didn't resist, as expected! Beside, from the beginning of the plot, we also follow two detectives of Polícia Judiciaria, Madeira (Ivo Canelas) and Neves (Jose Raposo) that, by chance, get noticed of this crime of corruption and start investigating. The result you will see in the end of the movie… That's why this country is like it is! (I won't spoil the end of the movie because I think that is right there where is the main social critic of this movie, and even being a bit predictable, I think it's a good ending which doesn't deserve to be spoiled!)…

About the acting I think it's very good from (generally) all actors.

Soraia Chaves does a great job. She's beautiful and she does perfectly this role of Call Girl, because she fits very well in the character. I read somewhere that she said something like this: "I don't believe that will be the shapes of my body that will determinate the success of this movie"… In fact, if in the first time I read that I laughed, now I must say I agree with Soraia! There's no doubt that Soraia's nudity in this film works like an attraction to the viewer. Almost like Mr. President the viewer is caught by Soraia's beauty, but this film has much more to offer besides it! It's a good social critic, it has a nice story/plot, acting, production; I think it's a very good movie to Portuguese standards! That's what Soraia meant to say I suppose… So, her nudity works just like marketing to attract the common Portuguese viewer, that is so disbelieved in Portuguese cinema!...

Nicolau Breyner also has an excellent performance, much better that in his other recent Portuguese film, CORRUPÇÃO…

Well, generally, I think this film is a good example of what Portuguese cinema can be. We need more like this one!

In the plains of the southern Portuguese region of Alentejo the greatest agricultural richness are the cork-oaks since Portugal is the first cork producer in the world. There is a municipality of poor people most of them old who never knew another agricultural wealth and whose communist mayor is a honest man. A big international corporation needs the fields where the cork-oaks are implanted to build there a luxury tourist resort which includes extensive golf-links and courses. But to implement that big project it's necessary to pull down thousands of oak-trees thus changing completely the economy of the region and the lives of those who live there in the worst sense. The project cannot be put into practice without the mayor's signature authorizing it and he has always refused to do it, resisting to all corruption and bribery attempts that have been tried to break that resistance. There are in this world nowadays two levers that command power and change many situations: money and sex. Therefore here since the first lever failed the second one must be tried. And it's now that enters in the scene the element that can do it with success: the so called call girl or the fine and expensive prostitute whose role is splendidly done by Soraia Chaves a beautiful young actress who acts this role as well as any of the best Hollywood stars would do it. She is in fact irresistible and conquers and subdues our man entirely. A call girl when used as a means of corruption can be used in two ways: by corrupting directly the man with her sexual performances or at certain point refusing to go on with them without huge payments which forces the man who fell in love with her to accept the proposal of the bribers or corrupters in order to pay her and not lose her. This is basically the movie story, admirably told and admirably acted by all the performers including the two police inspectors that are trying along the whole movie to detect the corrupting business and arrest its intervenients. The story develops itself in a lot of varied vicissitudes and incidents which rivet our attention all along the movie projection till the end which is somewhat unpredicted. This is one of the recent movies that must indeed be seen not only by cinephiles but also by the the general public.

This is indeed a movie that may catch the viewer's attention for the over 2 hours duration. The story of a high-class hooker being rented to persuade a small town politician to approve a millionaire yet not so honest building project while being involved with one of the cops in charge of the investigation may not be the most original plot, for sure. Still, the movie is quite well done, it has pace, some action, characters are developed enough and of course, the lead actress shows a lot of flesh. This flesh thing, which may be one of the main reasons to attract the male crowd (and the movie is being advertised mostly based on that not so minor item), was an interesting surprise, at least for a female viewer: it's not that gratuitous. Well, the girl is a hooker, and you should understand what "arguments" she has to drive men crazy as she's supposed to (and she does have plenty of those), still, the sex scenes are not graphic at all, and in fact you never see any real (in a cinematic sense, of course) interaction between her and her partners: the most revealing scene is a one-woman-show. This said, the acting is very acceptable, with Nicolau Breyner (the Mayor who's the Call Girl victim) standing from the crowd, a nice job from the other actors, and even the model-turned-actress Soraia Chaves defends her role. Particularly interesting are the dialogs (albeit all the swearing), which sound very natural and realistic for what Portuguese cinema has gotten us used to. For an American-style commercial movie, it stands its ground.

In my opinion this is one of the best movies made in Portugal. Even though I am not a movie expert, I believe that the comments made above by Rui Resende are a little bit too harsh. As a Portuguese citizen, he should know that - we rarely produce such good movies. If this script would be produced in Hollywood, it would certainly be a hit. So Thank you very much Mr. Vasconcelos.

The movie starts with two different stories that eventually merge. On one hand, we have this beautiful escort - obviously a magnificently gorgeous Portuguese brunette (you will fall in love with her!) - that desires a life of luxury. She gets hired by an old business partner (Joaquim d' Almeida: Clear and Present Danger, Desperado, Behind Enemy Lines, The Chronicles of Riddick, etc.) to persuade this Mayor to approve a golf resort project in this traditional little town in Alentejo. On the other, we have this ambitious/rebel young detective and his experienced partner that end up coming from Lisbon to investigate a couple of deaths in this little town - not related to the attempted bribery that is going on. After this point the movie continues at an exciting pace, and the detectives end up investigating the bribery... there are a couple of "surprises" that definitely make this movie worth watching!!! As good as any other millionaire Hollywood production with similar kind of plot, with the advantage of getting to know the Portuguese society and enjoy some beautiful scenarios. If I could improve something in this movie it would be solely the soundtrack.

If you like movies about corruption and the vices of society then you will also enjoy "Portugal S.A.", like Resende mentioned above. Nonetheless, I prefer "Call Girl". Another recent Portuguese movie that may be worth watching is "Corrupcao" - I have not seen it yet. The latter is based on a book written by a former lover of the President of a main soccer team in Portugal (F.C. Porto) and assesses the bribery of referees and the dangerous connections between the soccer world and the local government - it has also beautiful shots, including scenes in Santiago de Compostela (Spain).

Cheers!