This 2009 film, by the master filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira, is a rather short but captivating story. A man begins to recount his passionate tale to a fellow passenger as they travel aboard a train.Then in flashback, as he narrates, you can see the story unfold. How he became obsessed with a young blond woman, waving a fan, in a building window directly across the street from his office. You see the lengths he went to, risking everything, to be with her, and the unexpected conclusion to the love saga.I felt the film maintained the viewer's interest consistently as the story progressed. Therefore, I found it to be quite engrossing.De Oliveira I believe is now over 100 years old, which makes the film even more remarkable.
... View MoreReading the other reviews helped me to put this film in context. If you watch the film cold you will be baffled and not sure how to react. You must understand that the film is humorous and a parody.The film is based on a nineteenth century short story (Eça de Queiroz). But it is a parody on nineteenth century story telling (and life). As such it is humorous and entertaining. A clerk Macário (Ricardo Trêpa) sees a girl Luisa (Catarina Wallerstein) out of his window... he must marry her (Yes this is funny in today's world). His boss also his uncle will not allow him to be married. The clerk goes off to find his fortune to support his love. He prevails but is swindled of his fortune. However, in the end his uncle forgives him and supports the marriage. As he is about to wed he discovers his wife is a thief. That ruins it for him! (Of course Wallerstein is drop dead gorgeous so that kind of moralistic ending is so unlikely--more humor).If you don't understand this as humor (parody a stuffy idiotic Victorian story in modern times) it may appear surrealistic or too arty. The film is beautifully shot --it was too close up--this has to do with the parody too (I am assuming).Watch it and then figure it out (like I did) that will give you the most mileage.
... View MoreManoel de Oliveira writes and directs "Eccentricities of a Blonde Haired Girl", a slight but intermittently interesting romantic comedy. De Oliveira was a hundred years old when he directed the film. Many regard him as the oldest film director in the history of our planet."Eccentricities" opens on a train bound for Algarve, a ticket inspector hobbling away from camera as the train surges forward "beneath" him. This dual motion suggests stasis, a limbo in which our hero, Marcario, sits. An attractive young man, Marcario strikes up a conversation with the passenger seated beside him. Through flashbacks we learn of Marcario's recent romantic crash-and-burn, a love affair in which he fell head over heels for the blonde haired girl living opposite his uncle's firm. Using window frames, paintings, arches and a series of immaculate compositions, Oliveira draws a line from Marcario's idealisation of the blonde girl to art and cinema. Love always springs from the visual imagination, is a polymorphous perversion more akin to a fetish, the blonde haired girl an idealised object Marcario worships from afar, but grows to detest as the distance between them closes. When the gap between fantasy and reality irrevocably crumbles, it is then comically revealed that the blonde haired girl is a creepy, deceptive thief. Marcario promptly grows furious and calls off the couple's planned marriage. But Marcario's fall into disillusionment, which Oliveira extends beyond romance to everyday life and labour, is his own fault (in a bit of meta-delusion, the film's character's applaud the text upon which they themselves are based). Though Marcario resents his uncle, he is equally pampered, narrow minded and bigoted.7.9/10 - See Bresson's "Une femme douce" instead, or Antonioni's superior, masterful "Beyond the Clouds", both better films which deal with similar material. See also "In the City of Silvia" and a Wender's misfire called "Lisbon Story". Worth one viewing.
... View MoreSingularidades de uma Rapariga Loura is, to the best of my recollection, the first Portuguese film I have seen. It is based upon a work by one of Portugal's greatest writers, Eça de Queirós, who also wrote El crimen del padre Amaro, but that film was done in Mexico.The film is relatively short, so things happen rapidly. Macário (Ricardo Trêpa) spots a girl (Catarina Wallenstein) in a window, and is smitten instantly. He knows nothing of Luísa, but wants to marry her. Was it the Chinese fan she was holding that stunned him? Uncle Francisco (Diogo Dória) was more level headed and refused to allow it, which sent poor Macário into the streets to earn enough to do it on his own. This is made more difficult by the fact that no one wants to hire him for fear of making his uncle angry. But, he finally finds an employer that immediately sends him to Cape Verde.Things go well, turn bad, get better, and finally come crashing down.Oppulent sets and formal mannerisms, as well as humor throughout, make for a very interesting film concerning the moral of not rushing into something before you have all the details.
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