User Reviews

I waited years to finally watch this movie. Finally my chance has come. I was hoping that someday I'd finally have access to it. Even though Portuguese cinema is widely unknown and forgotten (even in Portugal), this one in particular was the subject of some talking at its time.

The movie has a nice, interesting plot. If I wanted to resume it, I'd say that it is about a son who wishes to have a father who wants to have a son. But I will go into more detail.

The story is about a lonely 13 year old boy named Filipe, who never gets any attention from his father. When his father proposes a Summer vacation in Azores islands with his son, it seems unreal for the boy. Although Filipe is happy with this, he also can't help thinking of the past and isn't used to have the company of his father, so they feel like strangers to each other.

Inevitably, Filipe has many questions to ask his father. And he confesses everything: that he never wanted to have kids because he didn't want to be attached to kids; that he suddenly realized that he's got a 13 year old son who doesn't know; and that he's got a lung cancer and has only a few months of life.

Slowly, father and son get to know each other and Filipe starts making him lots of questions (including about sex and women). Plus, by meeting Joana (a girl who is taller and older than him) he experiences for the first time what it's like to be in love.

When Filipe returns to Lisbon, his father doesn't accompany him to the airport for a reason that makes you reflect: that to wave someone in a taxi is much easier than to wave someone at the airport because if you wave someone in a taxi you don't have to say goodbye.

The movie has a very pretty song by Delfins ("Não vou ficar") and is well directed by Luís Filipe Rocha and the scenario is one thing in its favor: Azores are very green and natural islands. Their beauty and enchant are remarkable. There is something magical about Azores. And legend says that Azores are remainings of what once was the continent of Atlantis. I've never been to Azores, but I'd very much like to.

José Afonso Pimentel has a very convincing acting as Filipe. João Lagarto is okay as Filipe's father.

Still, the movie doesn't have enough strength to me to be considered a truly great movie. There are things about it that could have been better. But I won't mention them here - I'm afraid I can't give much of an explanation.

Even so, the movie doesn't look like just a longer episode of some Portuguese soap-opera (as it happens in some of the very few Portuguese films I've seen so far). Plus, this movie is a mirror of Portuguese society of the late 1990's and not of today's Portuguese society, something that is greatly in its favor. Portuguese soap-operas of today are all about wickedness, violence, selfishness, greed and rudeness.

This film, for everything it shows, could only be shot in Azores. Archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic, the present says it's Portuguese territory with Portuguese people, the history says it could have been the top of the mountains of Atlântida; country in the dreams and conscience of the whole Occidental civilization, living today (and 11 years ago, the year of the picture)on the verge of self destruction, for encouraging for (too) many years the evolution of the "material" as opposite to "spiritual" everyday more lost, everyday more in need. Azores, islands of dreams; this film is a dream and its theme is precisely what we've been loosing. Choosing Azores, is seeking origin, is seeking purity.

Story

A simple device - off voice narrated story, this is assumed from the beginning of the film, we don't know until very close to the end that it is the boy, the off voice, who is generating the plot as the picture moves along. The second part is the unveiling of everything. Reveiling all the inspiration sources, it shows how inspiration can come, in the most innocent and open of minds, the one of a child.

"once upon a time there was a son who wanted to have a father who wanted to have a son". This quite sums it... this is story folding of terrific quality

Camera work

This is one of the most intelligent and subtle camera works i have observed lately. Ultimately, one can almost consider it as the complement of dialogue, the descriptions we don't get through dialogue nor off voice narration so, the camera is the boy's imagination. Subtlety is its trade mark. Sublime work, completely adequate in every moment, in every intention.

Photography

Impressively good. It's very hard to find this kind of precision of contrasts and this understanding/interpretation of the light of a cinema set (though on real location, it was temporarily a cinema set), even in richer productions. This is a painter's work, the baroque painters, specially Rembrandt, worked light on the same basis. Once again i am astounded.

Music

In a time when Delfins were a band worth listening, though not known outside Portugal (foreigners loose), the soundtrack is made of a catchy, ear friendly tune and a necessary number of simple, almost minimalistic pop-rock instrumental themes. Solid work, maybe not reaching the quality of photography and camera in terms of adequacy to the moments, but good anyway.

The film is a fable of miscommunication and empty relation, redeemed by the dream of the one who hasn't been corrupted yet. It's a story of emotional heartbreak, not developed feelings; ultimately the occidental contemporary cancer which is the disproportion between the daily life value of relations and money. Too me, more important than understanding the mental mechanics behind every story folding trick, camera work, etc. is the capacity of feeling invaded and (more or less) identify with the thing. That will probably tell something about you.

My evaluation: 4/5 (almost getting to 5)