Chosen for this year selection at CPH PIX festival – www.cphpix.dk The admittedly long running time should not discourage audiences from buying a ticket to see Raoul Ruiz’s masterful adaptation of Camilo Castelo Brancho’s classic ‘Mysteries of Lisbon’. Think ‘Brideshead Revisited’ or a great novel that you can’t put down. Or, maybe more relevant in our days, a DVD box set with the complete seasons of ‘The Wire’. The story tells the sad fate of an orphan, Joao, who is the result of a futile romance between two aristocrats, who came from different lineages and would never be able to marry each other. The film is told by Joao who at 14 is desperate to get to know his origins. He has lived with a friendly priest, who gives away his mother’s identity, and from then on it doesn’t take long before the film weaves a tapestry of intrigues and desires around the boy’s story. As in the Proust adaptation ‘Time Regained’, Ruiz shows why he is one of the few living directors that can be entrusted with the great classical works of literature. With ‘Mysteries of Lisbon’ he has not only made a captivating adaptation, but perhaps also his best film to date – which with an impressive back catalogue of nearly 100 films is quite a compliment. Released on 2010 Directed by: Raoul Ruiz Starring: Léa Seydoux, Melvil Poupaud, Clotilde Hesme, Catarina Wallenstein, Maria João Bastos
Video Rating: 4 / 5
intriguing looking film. not sure if i should watch it though.
Meu gousto .
AU plaisir.
i saw this film yesterday, and i thought it was very beautiful if not sad- but can anyone tell me about the music featured in the trailer, which starts at 1:08? in the film one of the characters says it’s an ‘african lundun’? i don’t know much about Portuguese music, but i would like to find it, its very sensual and charming
Uuuh… Unfortunately, from this trailer, I didn’t get what the movie is about. But the title is really cool, so I guess I won’t be wasting my time if I watch it. :3
ok
@thecultbox, Camilo Castelo “Brancho”? Correct is “Branco”… “Camilo” is male for Camile, “Castelo Branco” is literally “white castle” in Portuguese.
Já cá faltavam brasileiros a espalhar diarreia…
basically it’s ” vai para o caralho!”
lol!
@creativoish, How do you say “up u’rs” in Portuguese?
lol just kidding. Merry Christmas and Happy new year.
Thank you for the upload thecultbox. I have been a huge Raul Ruiz fan for years and years so it’s good to see him getting some mainstream, up-front attention. The man is a genius/brilliant director. Hopefully a cinema scholar who is a better writer than myself will write a critical essay/filmography about “Mysteries of Lisbon” to sort everything out.
it’s portuguese you idiot
Oh well, ” je ne se pa le france” and don’t like reading subtitles so I pas. Anyways how did I get here?
It’s not a question of patriotism. Unlike a Soap Opera, this movie is about a Book (a Political Romance). Its a portrait of a sociaty that still exists in Portugal, and that is the true sense of this movie. This is not a movie for foreigners, it’s a movie to Portugal. This is a modern critical view of the portuguese, showing them how they have been stuck to the same mistakes since the 18 century.
Next time get the point instead of acusing others of “patriotism”.
No. They are rich, they hide their past, they are representative of the portuguese “way of doing”, and an inevitable part of the society. Far from boring, they still represent the elitist view of the portuguese, and therefore they have a political value that somehow, i can understand that you do not understand. More than ever, this movie makes sense in Portugal.
Perhaps that is the setback here. The question is not so much the validity of such period movies in contemporary times, rather their relevance. Entitlement is severely flaunted here, and due to my family history of wealth and poverty, I find this obnoxiously familiar and repetitive. The question truly is,… what’s the point? So they’re rich, hypocritical, entitled and boring. Nothing new here.
“It”
The movies made here are worst. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean this movie is good. It really has some semblances of a soap opera.
Less patriotism please. It’s just another alternative movie.
Horrible, is not to understand a “plot” that have a political interveinance, obvious to someone with a little higher degree of portuguese history. Surely, i can’t espect that from someone wich the country only produces Soap Operas and think that Camilo Castelo Branco is not worth reading.
Chato é fazer filmes de época sempre sobre a corte de D. João VI. Chato é achar-se interessante, sem que no fundo se tenha interesse algum. Chato é fazer figura de preconceituoso mesmo em frente de quem se tem preconceito. Chato é uma infinidade de outras coisas que poderiam ser ditas sobre ti sem sequer fazer algo mais que ler o teu pobre e infeliz comentário.
It is hard to make a movie about 18 and 19 centuries in Lisbon without mentioning or picturing rich people. Lisbon was the capital of one of the richst empieres at the time and therfore wide fortunes arose in that city. Books never tell the story of poor and unknown people.
Comentário parvo e idiota… como os burros…