Pedro Hestnes Movies
- 2006
Portuguese director Hugo Vieira da Silva's feature Body Rice joins Gus Van Sant's Gerry, Jose Maria de Orbe's The Straight Line, and other recent motion pictures that pontificate at length on the endless vapidity inherent in banal lives. Vieira da Silva chooses as his subject a cadre of German teenagers shuttled off to a social reintegration program in Portugal, where they wander endlessly through the countryside searching, in vain, for personal significance. Sylta Fee Wegmann, Julika Jenkins, and Alice Dwyer co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylta Fee Wegmann, Alice Dwyer, (more)
- 2000
Raul Ruiz's Love Torn in a Dream is introduced with a fake newsreel, taking place in postwar France, in which the cast of the film meet with the producer, who explains the film's complex weave of nine narratives. A diagram in which each story is represented by a letter of the alphabet explicates the intertwining of the nine tales. As the producer explains each actor's role, the film begins. The stories, rooted in folklore, bump up against each other as the film leaps back in forth in time. They involve a jewel stolen from a painting, a mirror that "steals" what it reflects, a seminary student who dresses as a priest to hear the nuns' confessions, brothers who combat each other in their search for a group of rings, a man whose everyday life is predicted by a website 24 hours in advance, a Catholic who finds out he's really Jewish, and a treasure map that leads to a pirate's chest. Each of the main cast members plays multiple roles. Ruiz veterans Melvil Poupaud and Elsa Zylberstein play the lead roles, while Lambert Wilson, Christian Vadim, Diogo Dória, José Meireles, and Rogério Samora play supporting roles. The film won the FIPRESCI Award at the 2000 Montreal World Film Festival, and was shown as part of the "Film Comment Selects" series at New York's Lincoln Center in 2003. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Melvil Poupaud, Elsa Zylberstein, (more)
French filmmaker/musician F.J. Ossang, who featured a dope delirium plus full-frontal apocalyptic audio attack in his black-and-white Le tresor des Iles Chiennes) (Land of the Dead), rebounds with the acid noir red-out of this French-Chilean road movie about a hitman (Pedro Hestnes) and a hooker (Elvire) who meet at a South American hotel and then let loose on an ultra blast through red-hot Chile, leaving a trail of drug dealers and meta-mind blasts into the blue. Ossang's own music group, the Messagero Killer Boy provides the industrial techno-rock sounds. Shown at 1997 film fests (London, Locarno). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elvire, Pedro Hestnes, (more)
- 1994
This unique Portuguese film chronicles an eight hour period in Lisbon. It is part of a trilogy, Lisbon, 24 Hours that the city commissioned to celebrate its year as a European Capital of culture. This episode covering the hours 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. begins with a suicide and ends with a birth. Each of the vignettes are loosely involved with the others and cover a broad range of subjects including; two drunks returning home after a long boozy night; a man with murder on his mind, an English speaking couple making up; a fallen film star demonstrating a kiss; a ballet dancer's painful realization that she cannot dance. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Teresa Roby, Pedro Hestnes, (more)
- 1994
This rather esoteric Portuguese-French drama is filled with poetic imagery. It is notable for it's beautiful photography as it follows a devoted nurse from her Portuguese home to the strange Cape Verde islands. Mariana is the nurse assigned to care for the injured immigrant worker Leao who is in a coma. With him she returns to his Cape Verde village. She was dissatisfied with her currently depressing life and willingly went. She begins to feel almost claustrophobic in the grim environment as she encounters a series of disturbing characters who drag her deeper into their depressing and hopeless lives. Mariana begins to reevaluate her former life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isaach de Bankolé, Edith Scob, (more)
- 1993
Miguel (Luis Miguel Cintra) is lucky that his income will only level off if he neglects his business as a financier, and his wife and family will be well supported. Why? Because he has begun hearing noises that no one else hears, noises that bother him a great deal, and that make it impossible for him to bear human society. His wife (Jessica Weiss) is thoroughly put out by this radically changed behavior in her formerly good husband, but though she considers leaving him, she stays by his side. Deep in the mountains, Cecelia (Rita Dias), a devout, pure young cowherd, has been brutally raped by an old man. Her boyfriend (Pedro Hestnes) has killed the rapist, and fled the area. As a result of the rape, Cecelia is pregnant. One day, while driving in the mountains, Miguel gives Cecelia's boyfriend a ride. The two of them chance upon her sitting amid the rocks with her infant baby. The image is so like that of the Madonna that Miguel is thunderstruck. Not only that, the noises that plagued him have gone, and he can return to his patient wife a happier man. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Luis Miguel Cintra, Pedro Hestnes, (more)
- 1990
A number of colonial wars in Africa in the 1970s have resulted in the conscription of Alex's father Pedro into the Portuguese Army. The young man and his father write to one another frequently, and it seems as if they are still close. However, at some point, the letters stop coming. Alex and his mother are worried that Pedro might have been killed or captured, but that particular concern is soon replaced by another when they learn from a returning soldier that Pedro has been back in Portugal for several months. When he is persuaded to return to his home, it becomes clear that he might have been wiser to stay away. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vincent Gallo, Teresa Roby, (more)
- 1989
This classy drama is an updated version of Dickens' novel. Filmed entirely in black and white, the tale is set in the Portuguese industrial town of Poco do Mundo (World's End). The story centers on the schoolmaster's two children. The sister is married to a prominent factory owner. She is terribly unhappy. Her brother works in her husband's factory. All of the main characters have terrible secrets that they hide. Eventually the secrets destroy them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henrique Viana, Joaquim Mendes, (more)
- 1989
Little is explained in this enigmatic drama. Vincente (Pedro Hestnes Ferreira) and Nino (Nuno Ferreira) have learned to cope so well with their father's frequent unexplained absences that when he apparently disappears for good, they have no difficulty continuing as before. The equilibrium they have established is more precarious than it seems, however, as relatives come to the house seeking clarification of the situation, and it is broken completely when some gangsters who have had some dealings with their father come and try to beat information out of them. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
