Paulo Branco Movies
- 1994
The human condition is examined in this Portuguese French film with opens with a warning that informs the audience that the following is not a documentary but a moral tale about the anachronisms of modern society. The story, set in an aging neighborhood filled with interesting characters, focuses upon an old blind man and his daughter. Every day, the blind one sits in a doorway sells thread and begs. The daughter spends her days ironing and complaining. Their neighborhood is not a wealthy one, and many passerby are envious of the old beggars' box of accumulated coins. It has been stolen before so the man and the daughter's boyfriend keep an eye upon it. Tragedy ensues when the box does indeed disappear. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Luis Miguel Cintra, Glicinia Quartin, (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)
- 1994
Using comedy and melodrama this film reflects upon the filmmaking process as it follows a young woman's attempts to create an avant garde film. Alice has just lost her father, and just divorced her husband David. She wants to make a film on artist Marcel Duchamp and trace his imaginary trip to Brazil. But first she must find financial backing and a leading man. She finds the latter in Antonio, a musician. She has no luck finding money until she becomes involved with the Baron, a drug trafficker. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alexandre Borges, Hamilton Vaz Pereira, (more)
This beautifully photographed German drama is set in Lisbon, a major center for contemporary European culture, and offers insight into the nature of cinema. Sound recordist Phillip Winter is driving to Lisbon to meet his old friend Friedrich Monroe who recently sent him a postcard asking Winter to help him with a documentary, but when he arrives, Monroe is nowhere to be found. Instead, Winter only finds a few cans of film shot on an old fashioned hand cranked camera. When he is not aimlessly ambling about the beautiful city recording sounds for the film, Winters passes the time playing with the local street children who are obsessed with chronicling even the smallest events on their video cameras. He also begins falling for Teresa, the singer whose band is composing the soundtrack for the documentary. Eventually Monroe returns with a brand new vision and some strong opinions on the sorry state of contemporary cinema. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1993
This is the "air" segment of a proposed four-element dramatic series planned by director Joao Botelho, and could be considered as a companion piece to Joaquim Pinto's Das Tripas Coracao, which has a "fire" theme. In the movie, Miguel is about to have his seventh birthday. Already in his life there is some question about whether he has anything at all to celebrate: his father is in prison, his mother is very depressed, his grandfather (at whose house he is staying) is ill, and may not live long. Even the neighbors seem to be at odds with one another, fighting much of the time. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joao Lagarto
- 1993
The spirit of the open road carries away the protagonists in this cheerful film. After buying a 1957 Ford Fairlane (the first year cars had "fins") Manuel and his friend Artur (Felipe Cochofel and Antonio Pedro Figueiredo) are out just driving around for the sheer fun of it. Of course, it's a very old car, so sometime during the evening, it breaks down. At sunrise, they open the hood and try to get it going again, but meet with no success until Vitor (Canto e Castro), a local beekeeper, notices their plight. He used to be a mechanic, and he has no problem getting the car running again. He is an elderly fellow with a heart condition, but the car evokes in him a yearning to go out on the road with the younger men and look up a friend of his. Manuel and Artur agree to this quite cheerfully, and their good spirits don't diminish much when the old man quietly dies while in the car with them. At this point, their adventures are far from over, and they still have Vitor's friend to look up... ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Felipe Cochofel
In this artful film by 85-year old director Manoel de Oliveira, the heroine, instead of being powerless in the face of a world ruled by men, finds herself to be far too powerful. Beginning when she was a child, Ema (Leonor Silveira as an adult) had the kind of looks and manner that could stop cars when she came up to a street -- or cause accidents. As time goes by, she explores her power over men and, as a mature woman, chooses to marry a man who has virtually no machismo so that she can continue having affairs and exploring this mysterious ability of hers. Eventually she seeks to transcend her unusual limitation and accomplishes her death with astonishing serenity. This haunting story is based on a novel by Agustina Bessa-Luis. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leonor Silveira, Luis Miguel Cintra, (more)
- 1993
In this short drama, fraternal twins Armando and Beatriz are on their own together. They share many things in common, and have formed a household together while they undertake their new duties as apprentice firefighters. Armando has begun a little fling with a downstairs neighbor, and Beatriz is puzzled at her own unpleasant reaction to this. Could she be jealous? She is prone to hearing fires that aren't there, and this psychosomatic symptom only disappears when people, particularly attractive strangers, kiss her. She is getting a reputation for promiscuity, and this only adds to the tension between the twins. However, it eventually looks as though they will work things out, albeit in an unconventional, rather deviant manner. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leonor Silveira
- 1993
This is the third (earth) segment in the "Four Elements" series of short films made for Portuguese television. In the story, farmer Augusto (Jose Viana) is having a quarrel with his neighbor about water rights. At the time, he is carrying a hoe. When he turns one way, and she turns another, the hoe strikes her dead. Despite the fact that it is an accidental death, Augusto returns home, dresses as though for a wedding, and turns himself in. He receives a stiff sentence for his pains, but remains placid throughout. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adelaide Joao, Zita Duarte, (more)
- 1993
Martine (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) hasn't been quite right in the head since she suffered a romantic reversal several years before, but she had been getting by in the regular world fairly well. However, when her current boyfriend tells her he's leaving, she promptly butts her head into a door so hard that she suffers from amnesia and is placed in a mental ward. There, she devotes her not inconsiderable energy and inventiveness to improving the romantic lives of her fellow patients. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Melvil Poupaud, (more)
- 1992
This biographical drama was made especially to gratify devotees of the life and work of the 19th-century Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco. Chief among the writers' admirers is this film's director Manoel de Oliveira, who has devoted two earlier films to stories by him. Branco is considered to be one of the greats writers in recent Portuguese history and was also (like his colleagues throughout Europe) much given to scandalizing society with a string of mistresses. In this film, he is shown to be a self-absorbed individual, much given to bouts of depression. During one of these, he shot and killed himself. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Teresa Madruga, Mario Barroso, (more)
- 1992
Daniel and Maria were lovers at one time, but they have long since broken their affair off. However, when they keep running into one another at a Madrid department store, they start to think that perhaps Fate is saying something to them, and reluctantly they try to give one another a second chance -- when they aren't having second thoughts, that is. However, the trick that fate is really playing on them doesn't become clear until the very end. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juanjo Puigcorbe, Eulalia Ramon, (more)
- 1992
Samuel has made his way to a pier along the river and plans to jump in and drown himself. He is standing there gathering his courage, when he is accosted by an older man, a sailor who has come there for the same reason. The sailor, Eloi, declines Samuel's invitation to join him in the jump and instead invites him back into town with him. The two return to Lisbon and begin a two-day carouse, interspersed with a visit to Eloi's bedridden shrew of a wife, and culminating in Samuel's meeting the sailor's daughter, a deaf-mute hooker. This being a movie (albeit one with some artistic pretensions), Samuel immediately falls in love with her. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fabienne Babe
- 1991
In this symbolic and philosophically weighty film, all of the inhabitants of a Portuguese mental asylum suffer from religious delusions of one kind or another -- even the cynic who denies the value of any religions at all. One couple re-enacts the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden, and then the woman who played at being Eve plays at being St. Teresa de Avila. Another man thinks he's a character from a Dostoyevsky novel, and yet another claims to have in his possession a fifth gospel from the Bible. Everyone has a point of view and is not shy about stating it, defending it in debate with the others with great sincerity, though (the reviewers claimed) with very little elegance or wit. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria de Medeiros, Luis Miguel Cintra, (more)
- 1991
Paul (Dominic Guard) is a journalist who is up to date on the latest horrors of the modern world and is heartsick about them. He has a wife (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) and a steady job but leaves both of them suddenly for parts unknown. His wife is worried about him, and she is angry that he left without a word. She is sufficiently concerned to seek out one of Paul's former flames (Angela Molina) for information about where he might have gone. Soon, this girl has joined her in a quest to find Paul. They finally discover him in a Spanish resort town on the coast, moodily riding his motorcycle over the countryside and sharing philosophical musings with Antonio (Francisco Rabal), a magnetic older man who fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Romantic and sexual complexities brought on by the rivalry between these two attractive women add to Paul's malaise.
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francisco Rabal, Dominic Gould, (more)
- 1990
Episodes from entire military history of Portugal are told through flashbacks as a professorish soldier recounts them while marching through a Portuguese African colony in 1973. He easily draws his comrades into philosophical musings, and the little contingent suffers badly at the hands of the local military opposition. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Luis Miguel Cintra, Diogo Doria, (more)
- 1990
King Alfonso VI of Portugal ruled from 1656-1667. Despite numerous physical and mental handicaps, he was able to bring about an end to his mother's regency, and to fend of a Spanish invasion. In this film, the king's wife has joined forces with those who would dethrone him. In a trial before the papal legate, his sexual deficiencies were exposed, and his marriage to his French queen was annulled and he was imprisoned. She went on to marry the man who was to become Alfonso's regent and later became the next king, Peter II. This elegant historical drama, filmed on location in palaces that were in use at the time, tells the story of his fall from power, and of the trial. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aurelle Doazan
- 1989
In this French romantic drama, Stephane (Michel Feller) wants to form a romantic bond with Sabine (Clotilde de Bayser), and to do this has left his pregnant girlfriend behind. Sabine would rather be with Bruno (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey) her former boyfriend, a stage actor. Bruno in turn is much more interested in his current girlfriend. Each person is, in his or her own way, attempting to deal with issues of maturity and responsibility and repeatedly fails to find happiness or even a decently tranquil compromise between their desires and the realities of their situations. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clotilde de Bayser, Marie Matheron, (more)
- 1989
After moving to Switzerland to be the mail-order bride of an uncouth middle-aged Swiss man, Julie (Marie Gaydu), who comes from an island in the Indian Ocean, discovers that she cannot bear the man. After she leaves him, she embarks on an affair with Jean (Jean-Philippe Escoffey), the son of a local brickworks owner, much to the distress of that man's father. For a while their romance goes relatively smoothly, until the boy discovers that she is pregnant and won't submit to an abortion. Frantic, he goes haring off to some other country for a while. When he gets back, he gets hysterical about seeing their child. In this melodrama, when he finally decides to send Julie and her baby back to their remote homeland, the situation doesn't turn out well. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Philippe Ecoffey, Denise Peron, (more)
- 1989
Filipa has to return to Portugal from Switzerland, where she has been living, to marry. She has invited her Swiss friend Marie to come along. Marie is a young lady who has enough money to indulge her doubts and scruples about what she is going to do with her life. She is between relationships at the moment, and the two old friends head off for Portugal. As they talk over their lives and plans for the future, it becomes very obvious that they live in two entirely different worlds. Rather than harming their relationship, these differences only heighten it. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1989
Grieving Jimmy (Vincent Gallo) is shocked to learn after his mother's death that his long-lost father Doc (Paul McIssac) is alive and living somewhere in Europe. Jimmy goes in search of his father, a former radical Weatherman from the 1960s who fled the country during the turbulent decade. Although he suffers from a mysterious ailment contracted in Africa, the drunken Doc now devotes his efforts to healing instead of politically motivated violence. Ruy Furtado co-stars with Cesar Monteiro and Roslyn Payne. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul McIsaac, Vincent Gallo, (more)
- 1988
Rita is an 18-year-old Portuguese teen who is upset when her Parisian cousin Ann comes to visit. The two teenage girls quarrel with each other, and Rita and her boyfriend Antonio argue. Soon, Ann and Antonio fall in love, and the jealous Rita tries to break up the happy couple, and Antonio takes her back when Ann finally returns to Portugal. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Gautier, Isabel de Castro, (more)
- 1987
Two gunmen chase after an anthropologist on the run in this convoluted, low-budget drama. In spite of several technical flaws in production and amateurish performances, the film shared prize money given by the CIGA hotel chain at the 1987 San Sebastian Film Festival. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rafael Diaz, Jorge De Juan, (more)
- 1987
This forgettable, low-budget drama finds a violin teacher visiting his childhood friend and his wife at his country home in August of 1964. Talking heads deliver the trite dialogue that is unintentionally funny and seems to have been made up as the film was rolling. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christian Patey, Olivier Cruveiller, (more)
