Bernardo Sasseti (1970 - 2012)

A massive and wordless loss for music, film, the country and the world. My deepest condolences to family and friends. He left beauties like this one to fill the gripping silence we're made of.

"Dark Shadows" (2012)

One very common product of today's infinite catalog of entrainment, a tendency not so voguish in the beginning of the decade: vampires. Sure we'd had Coppola's Dracula in 1992, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer in 1997 and even John Carpenter's Vampires and Blade in 1998, but what's that compared with the bouquet of Twilight's saga and the foreign attempts to spin it off , True Blood series (2008 - present), the angle between Let the Right One In (2008) and its remake Let Me In (2010)? It engulfed the merchandise machine and we suddenly realized it is one of the most exhausted sub-genres of the time, making it much difficult not to be irrelevant.

 Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) was put upon a curse that made him a vampire and locked up for two hundred years, until the 1970's. Depp, one of the most versatile and extravagant actors of our ages, embraced this pale, archaic, handsome, ville but emotionally shattered creature of death, as he wakes up to take revenge on Angelique (Eva Green), the jealous witch who killed his beloved Josette (Bella Heathcote) and who did the tricks. The only problems are the electricity, the asphalt, the cars, television, the vinyls, the Carpenters, Alice Cooper or Iggy Pop, the still boiling design creative bubble of the 60's, the mash of colors, the hippies. What the hell is all that? Beelzebub, he thinks at first. Oh, and perhaps it is not too much to note that Angelique is a very, very sexy woman now, and the spooky mansion of his family, the Collins, is now a defunct large piece of a chateaux inhabited by the disenchanted remains of their last generation, headed by Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer). 

Dark Shadows (2012) is not as touching as Edward Scissorhands (1990) or Big Fish (2003) but arrives as one of the most enjoyable Tim Burton's of a career. I am a big fan of genre and thus I delight over deconstructions, re-examinations and crossovers. Some describe it as a Gothic dramedy. Indeed it is a very funny entwining of the conventions of the vampire mythology and horror aesthetic with the distant elements of the melodrama: the overbearing sentimentalism (the love triangle; Barnabas and Hoffman (Helena B. Carter) and the whole beauty angle; Carolyn's (Chlöe G. Moretz) teenage whims); the big palette of colors (e.g. the pinkish fire); the excess of form (extraordinary art direction and special effects). The lack of a social critique has given place to the dark and witty exegesis. I hint you to pay attention at some of the best  jokes: McDonalds; Chevy; get stoned. But I laughed a lot all the way throughout.

 It does have problems. Story problems, mostly. Seth Grahame-Smith popped up a couple of years ago with his book Pride, Prejudice and Zombies (which is now being turned into a movie), and in a snap became Burton's fetish screenwriter, alongside John August, who is co-credited with a "story by", here. Seth wrote Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) (adapted from his book) and is working on Beetlejuice 2 (2014). Although most of the dialog was very good, there were some on-the-nose lines, like Barnabus and Hoffman's last meeting in the house. Roping it to the cheesy last two minutes, I'm framing them all as target-audience devices.

Besides the protagonist and the antagonist, all the characters are sadly underdeveloped which in this case turned into a series of hanging foreshadowings, waiting for a little hand (e.g. Roger (Johnny Lee Miller) and the secret passage), unraveled storylines (e.g. David (Gulliver McGrath) and his mother) and coherence issues (why is Victoria (Belle Heathcote) the main character for fifteen minutes; what's her true relation with Josette; why is she there; who the hell is she and what's with all the ghost stuff). Also, they take some easiness while creating the rules of their special world, such as the scope of the magical powers, leaving out some logical lumps.

Chlöe proves we can wait for huge things from her in the future by making so interesting such a bi-dimensional character. She is the vehicle of one of the big (and also undeveloped) surprises and, without words, plays one of the great moments in the film when she dances in the background. The movie has those incredible visual moments, such as the set-piece sex-scene.

Take a chance to listen to the always beautiful score of Danny Elfman accompanied with some classics from the seventies, lean back, prepare your wits and enjoy this one.

IndieLisboa'12: winners and the big surprises

I didn't have the chance to watch as many films as I wanted and as I had planned. It's a difficult time of the year. L (2012), Le Skylab (2012), Take Shelter (2011) (would be my second screening of this great film), For Ellen (2012),  17 Daughters (2012), Rafa (2012), Into the Abyss (2011), Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), Whore's Glory (2012), Meet the Fokkens (2012) and several shorts are amongst those I would have like to have seen. I'll be searching for them now. This was, however, the  most interesting edition of the festival I attended to which therefore raises the stakes for next year, having the opportunity to be even greater. 

The 9th edition brought us one of the best films of 2011 (not counting with Take Shelter) and the best Portuguese film in many years.

 Azazel Jacobs (director) and Patrick Dewitt (writer), with Terri (2011).

Filipa Reis and João Guerra Miller, writers/directors, with Cat Craddle (2012).

WINNERS

 Best Film
De jueves a domingo (Dominga Sotomayor)

 
Audience Award for Best Film
Whores' Glory (Michael Glawogger)

Best Portuguese Film
Jesus por um Dia (Helena Inverno and Verónica Castro)

Best Short Film

Juku (Kiro Russ)

Hinorable Mention: The Great Rabbit (Atsushi Wada)

Honorable Mention: Praça Walt Disney (Renata Pinheiro and Sergio Oliveira)

Audience Award for Best Short Film
Retour à Mandima  (Robert-Jan Lacomb) 

Best Portuguese Short Film Award
Cama de Gato (Filipa Reis and João Miller Guerra)

Honorable Mention: Kali, o Pequeno Vampiro (Regina Pessoa)

IndieJúnior Audience Award
The Dog and the Key (Hee Jung Kim)

International Amnesty Award
From this day to where (Mathias Eriksen and Matias Rygh)

Honorable Mention: Bon  Voyage (Fabio Friedli)
Honorable Mention: Meet The Fokkens (Gabriëlle Provaas and Rob Schröder)

Árvore da Vida Award for Best Portuguese Film
Luz da Manhã (Cláudia Varejão)
Honorable Mention: Mupepy Munatim (Pedro Peralta)

TAP Award for Best Portuguese Documentary
A Vossa Casa (João Mário Grilo)

TAP Award for Best Portuguese Fiction Feature
Por Aqui Tudo Bem (Pocas Pascoal)
Prémio RTP Pulsar do Mundo
Meet the Fokkens de Gabriëlle Provaas e Rob Schröder

TV Cine Distribution Award
L'estate di Giacomo (Alessandro Comodin)

RTP2 Onda Curta Award
Chefu Party (Adrian Sitaru)

Fancy-Fair (Christophe Hermans)

Kali, o Pequeno Vampiro (Regina Pessoa)

Ovos de Dinossauro na Sala de Estar (Rafael Urban)

FNAC New Talent Award
Salomé Lamas (w/ Encounters With Landscape)

Obviosom/Gripman/Restart Award

 João Salaviza (w/ Cerro Negro)

IndieLisboa'12: "Alps" (2011)

I wrote here about my expectations about Alps (2011), the new film by the writing team Lanthimos/Filippou, the first also the director. That was the set for their prior brilliant Dogtooth (2010). Am I disappointed. The dispassionate, blocking, stern framing of the characters, mostly filmed backwards, that worked so well in his previous film, take a bigger weight and that annoyed me at some point. The inverted amorcée (the objects, rather than the character, were out of focus) isolated the characters from their world (their real world, from which they're constantly trying to break off) but it eventually detached me from what that world. There are some very good scenes, were the balance between the tragic comedy and the sexual and social bizarre create an intended disturbing metaphor for a human need of becoming something otherworldly. But you don't understand what's going on until 40 minutes into the film and overall the sequences seemed pasted only, I didn't get the meaning of too many of them, I was bored most of the time and couldn't connect to neither actions nor characters to get enveloped. I'd say, aesthetically coherent (I may have not liked but that doesn't stop it from having the potential to be considered a great work for many of you) but the writing was too all over the place for me.