Dockelektro

I was at the premiere of this.... movie (?) in Lisbon. A few hundred people attended. It was shown in the biggest cinema in the city. What to expect, shall I say? Well, I'm sure I wasn't expecting anything this unbelievably poor at all levels. I can assure you, the only thing in this movie that is coherent and seamless is its awfulness. The director, which braves an apparent shyness by putting himself in front of the camera and becoming the least likable leading man ever committed to celluloid, doesn't even know how to handle the non-existent dialogue. It's unbelievable how a person who calls himself an experienced film maker can put together something this poor. It looks like they were trying to make the worst movie ever by going against every single rule of movie making, thus destroying the little aspects that could appeal to the public. I can't stop wondering how on earth they managed too go to Venice and Paris and make both cities look BAD. I can't stop thinking how they managed to get some decent actors and destroy all the appeal that they could possibly add to this mess. My jaw dropped at the god-awful sound editing, with music fading in and out randomly, inexistent cross fades between scenes and incomprehensible dialogue. You can try to convince me that they were trying to make an exercise in deconstruction. To me, a guy that spent two hours (that seemed to go on forever) in that movie theater, it's insulting to call this a movie. Until when will people in this country keep believing that if you point a 35 mm camera to something you are directing a movie? What about narrative, appeal, basic notions of what is film, editing, usage of music and so on? This movie should make you people feel ashamed of yourselves. I understand that you don't have any money. But after watching this, I just KNOW that a kid with a video camera could do much, much better. I don't know what do you expect of this movie's career. I just know that yesterday, people were leaving the room while the film was still going, the audience were roaring their asses off in laughter in a funeral scene, and I had a laughing fit several times during this excruciating experience, while trying to understand what the hell was poor Marisa Paredes doing there. Her baffled face on the last shot on which she appears says everything.

Do you want an advice? Go buy a video camera. At least you have an excuse.

Alright, so it isn't fair. In an era where the people on their early thirties are granted constant revivals of everything that defined their youth (Blade Runner, Star Wars, forty-year-old bands meeting together and performing on stage again), Indiana Jones was really the last straw. Over the years, the mouthwatering prospect of seeing another Jones film made us sniff every hint of a rumor and every shred of news related with it. It finally has arrived, with a mammoth-size ball of hype on its shoulders. Let's admit that nothing on Earth could ever satisfy such a monster. So after we face it, let's get to the facts. It certainly is another age, and the filmmakers know that. We are not in an era of gaudy excess and over-the-top sequences. The days of campy, slick humor and faster-than-you-can-have-it action seem to be gone. And it's no wonder. Never forget that in the last ten years Steven Spielberg dedicated himself to much more serious fare, with very mixed results. As a result, Indy's much more dark and slow. He faces different kinds of problems and challenges, his reactions are different. He's starting to give in. But then again, the man is 67! Therefore, it seems logic that he no longer is the one-man-army he used to be. It's perfectly natural that he relies much more on his wits that on his fists. But don't let my word fool you: the movie has action, lots of it. What's really ironic is that the things that should help the movie in this age of digital possibilities are the things that cram it with unbelievability. It really bugs me that they achieved a film look that is up to par the 80's originals and then goes the "King Kong" way with CGI jungle scenes that completely take the realism out of it. It's a great statement of how computer images are starting to get really cheesy when they're made in quantity and not in quality (Mutt's vine-swinging anyone?). But to dismiss this movie as trash is to be cruelly unfair. It is a worthy successor to the original movies, and a truckload of fun. Yes, maybe they could have gone deeper with their main theme, yes it sometimes succumb to the George Lucas school of "do it in CGI", but it doesn't sacrifice the heart and soul of this movie. You just have to take it lightly and not like the violation of something holy. The new Star Wars trilogy proved that you can't take things too seriously. If even so you will choose to remain glued to the past and don't accept that Indy also ages, then you will be very annoyed. Everyone else will have a blast.

This could be... well just another Portuguese movie. But it had a special meaning, it was directed and produced by a few teachers of mine, and in my school many tried to see it, many went to the session our local Cinemateca provided, many went asking themselves what it would be like. I just happened to catch it at my work, at the national television's archives. Well, my friends, if you need another example that bad Portuguese movies are not stereotypes but in fact very real things, this it, the real example of how boring, badly dubbed, pretentious, tiresome, grey, badly illuminated and infuriatingly unbearable could be our movies twenty years ago. The problem is not the movie "per se" (I'm sure many those who participated in it feel sorry for themselves today), the problem is that two days ago I tuned in my TV and on was a Manoel de Oliveira movie from 2002 which looked exactly like this, or worse (even more pretentious). Bad acting included. Why isn't the audience even entitled to understand what are they talking about, or simply what they are saying? Why this obsession with complete disdain for the people who are already making an effort by continuing to watch the movie? This one's depressing, confusing and the worst part is that it could choose not to be. But maybe I am beating around the bush. It's a naive exercise in film-making, an irritating and amazingly boring one. But my sympathy for the director himself as a person is not in question. I learned a great deal from him back in my school days. My main problem is that in Portugal there are TOO MANY movies like these, to the point that the words "portuguese movie" are synonymous with "don't waste your time because it's boring, pretentious and impossible to watch until the end". 3 for some shots, and out of sympathy.