Oliveira’s fourth feature, adapted from a play by his close friend José Régio, was one of his major breakthroughs as a filmmaker: a fable about a deeply sheltered young woman who tells her wealthy, religious parents that she’s been impregnated in the wake of an angelic visitation. It’s possible to take Benilde, or the Virgin Mother as a scathing denouncement of religious hypocrisy, a veiled response to the abuses of the Salazar regime, or a set of obsessive, carefully staged formal exercises—or some combination of the three.
Tag: 1970s
This expansive Greek drama follows a troupe of theater actors as they perform around their country during World War II. While the production that they put on is entitled “Golfo the Shepherdess,” the thespians end up echoing scenes from classic Greek tales in their own lives, as Elektra plots revenge on her mother for the death of her father, and seeks help from her brother, Orestes, a young anti-fascist rebel.
Marco Polo, the well known adventurer and merchant’s son from Venice in Italy, travels all through asia to find the great Khan. Once there he posesses his protection to merchandise between China and Europe but he prefers to seek out for more adventures.
In a Corleone village during the 1950s, two young children Michael and Vito come to maturity and their lives take different destinies: Michael fights for the demands of the peasants and Vito, tired of poverty, joins an organization criminal who fights against the ideals of Michael. Vito’s first commission is to end the peasant movement, even if it means killing his own friend.
A young girl in search of spiritual enlightenment joins a religious cult, and becomes the focus of a struggle between her family and the group.
The story of the desperate love affair between a young Samoan chief and a beautiful American painter, against the will of her father, the powerful governor of the island. Amid this man-made tension comes a powerful hurricane so devastating, the lives of the lovers and the entire island are imperiled.
The film surreally describes the dynamics of the acquisition of power in the various historical periods, from prehistory to consumerism in contemporary Italy, passing through the Roman Empire, the conquest of the West at the expense of the native Indians, the fascist twenty years. The various scenes are commented by three beasts, a lion, a tiger and a leopard, representing military power, economic power, and agricultural power respectively.
——UPGRADED——
Sarah, an actress nearing 40, has invited the woman who has been her best friend for 16 years and two younger women to her vacation retreat in Provence. There are the simple pleasures of lounging in adjacent hammocks, the sun, the food, conversations about men. This is prologue for what happened a year ago in Paris with a man Sarah has long taken for granted as a platonic friend. She had just finished a film, also finishing her liaison with the director, and was about to get an award and start work on a new film and begin a romance with a German writer.