Mysteries of Lisbon (2010)
Mar. 6th, 2012 10:45![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyMysteries of Lisbon | Mistérios de Lisboa. Dir. Raúl Ruiz, 2010.
I'd heard, vaguely, that this was one of the best films people saw this year, and it says a lot about me that my impulsive idea of a good time on Friday night is a four-hour movie based off a 19thC Portuguese Romantic novel. And you know what? I was not disappointed at all, because the movie is fantastic--immersive, entrancing, transporting, gorgeous, weird and also funny at times. If you can see it, you should.
The movie is the second-to-last completed film of Chilean director Raúl Ruiz, and it was apparently originally broadcast on TV in Europe as a six episode miniseries; our screening came with an intermission. The plot, such as it is, follows the career of the young orphan (who's not really an orphan) João, whose name isn't really João, but the story is only a little more about João--who we quickly learn is actually named Pedro--than Laurence Stern's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is about the eponymous Tristram (you should all read Tristram, it's awesome). As the story spirals out from Pedro's quest to learn who he is and where he came from, other characters take up and take over the narrative, bringing the story further back into the past and further away from Pedro himself. No one is what they seem, or more precisely, no one's identity is fixed: orphans become counts, counts become beggars, soldiers become dukes, ruffians become wealthy bourgeoisie. Pedro's mentor and protector Padre Dinis acts as a focal point for most of the narrative, but even he has his secrets.
The movie, over and over, is about telling stories, about narrative, about how stories make us who we are--"I shall confess to you," characters say, over and over; "all shall be revealed to you in time." It's a lie, of course, but it's also true, and I was reminded of Tristram all the more because Pedro ultimately comes to seem a footnote in his own life, just a small part of a Dickensian tapestry of coincidence and intersecting lives. More than Hugo, I was reminded of Dumas pére, though no Frenchman could have written the 1854 novel this movie is based on, Os Mistérios de Lisboa by the Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco. Portugal and the other settings of the events are an out of the way corner of Europe, the fact of which is mirrored in the fact that the great events of the day are only obliquely revealed in the characters' lives, and the characters themselves are all obscure addenda to each others' lives.
The other thing is that the movie is very oddly funny, characters fainting, coming damned close to breaking the fourth wall at times, in one memorable instance committing suicide after waiting for a party of duelists to clear out--there's a wry sardonic quality to much of it that's interesting. Ruiz, I think, meant for his audience to laugh at this movie, but not everyone finds the same parts funny, which is an odd experience to have in a movie theater. Sociality and class are subtle themes, brought home to me when one of my favorite characters, the originally lower-class Alberto, reflects on how his life has turned into a "sordid bourgeois drama," just as many of the aristocratic characters have little else but their pretensions to call their own. The movie is a marvel, not only for its very 21stC meditations but also for an exacting portrait of a vanished Europe of the mid C19th.
Equally importantly, what are they putting in the water in Portugal? I've not read very many Portuguese novels, but they remain some of the best that I have read--Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet is a rich, strange literary experience like no other (all of you should read it, right now), and the Jose Saramago novel with one of Pessoa's heteronyms as its eponymous protagonist, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, is my favorite by the Nobel Prize winner.
I'd heard, vaguely, that this was one of the best films people saw this year, and it says a lot about me that my impulsive idea of a good time on Friday night is a four-hour movie based off a 19thC Portuguese Romantic novel. And you know what? I was not disappointed at all, because the movie is fantastic--immersive, entrancing, transporting, gorgeous, weird and also funny at times. If you can see it, you should.
The movie is the second-to-last completed film of Chilean director Raúl Ruiz, and it was apparently originally broadcast on TV in Europe as a six episode miniseries; our screening came with an intermission. The plot, such as it is, follows the career of the young orphan (who's not really an orphan) João, whose name isn't really João, but the story is only a little more about João--who we quickly learn is actually named Pedro--than Laurence Stern's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is about the eponymous Tristram (you should all read Tristram, it's awesome). As the story spirals out from Pedro's quest to learn who he is and where he came from, other characters take up and take over the narrative, bringing the story further back into the past and further away from Pedro himself. No one is what they seem, or more precisely, no one's identity is fixed: orphans become counts, counts become beggars, soldiers become dukes, ruffians become wealthy bourgeoisie. Pedro's mentor and protector Padre Dinis acts as a focal point for most of the narrative, but even he has his secrets.
The movie, over and over, is about telling stories, about narrative, about how stories make us who we are--"I shall confess to you," characters say, over and over; "all shall be revealed to you in time." It's a lie, of course, but it's also true, and I was reminded of Tristram all the more because Pedro ultimately comes to seem a footnote in his own life, just a small part of a Dickensian tapestry of coincidence and intersecting lives. More than Hugo, I was reminded of Dumas pére, though no Frenchman could have written the 1854 novel this movie is based on, Os Mistérios de Lisboa by the Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco. Portugal and the other settings of the events are an out of the way corner of Europe, the fact of which is mirrored in the fact that the great events of the day are only obliquely revealed in the characters' lives, and the characters themselves are all obscure addenda to each others' lives.
The other thing is that the movie is very oddly funny, characters fainting, coming damned close to breaking the fourth wall at times, in one memorable instance committing suicide after waiting for a party of duelists to clear out--there's a wry sardonic quality to much of it that's interesting. Ruiz, I think, meant for his audience to laugh at this movie, but not everyone finds the same parts funny, which is an odd experience to have in a movie theater. Sociality and class are subtle themes, brought home to me when one of my favorite characters, the originally lower-class Alberto, reflects on how his life has turned into a "sordid bourgeois drama," just as many of the aristocratic characters have little else but their pretensions to call their own. The movie is a marvel, not only for its very 21stC meditations but also for an exacting portrait of a vanished Europe of the mid C19th.
Equally importantly, what are they putting in the water in Portugal? I've not read very many Portuguese novels, but they remain some of the best that I have read--Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet is a rich, strange literary experience like no other (all of you should read it, right now), and the Jose Saramago novel with one of Pessoa's heteronyms as its eponymous protagonist, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, is my favorite by the Nobel Prize winner.