There cannot be a serious program of Ibero-American film that does not include a film whose hero is music



If Franz Kafka was the writer of Prague, then Fernando Pessoa definitely was the poet of Lisbon. Director Jose Fonseca e Costa in his film Os Misterios de Lisboa (What the Tourist Should See, 2009) impressively portrayed one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, but he did so even more with Lisbon, the city where the Atlantic ocean meets the river Tagus, and where antic and Mediterranean, Christian and Arabian culture converge. The viewer is left breathless – while the pictures and the narrator’s text lead him to the locations around the city chosen by Fernando Pessoa in his guidebook through Lisbon, written in 1925. The poet’s choices were enriched by Fonseca’s and so united, the poet and the director successfully draw the viewer into the city’s unbelievable magic of light and vistas, beauty and melancholy, brought on by fado, along with its historical importance as the origin of great discoveries and colonialism. This country was synonymous for its maritime power but was pushed aside later by Spain and England. These film mysteries set in Lisbon prove how important the republican shift in the beginning of the 20th century was for Portugal, and how Lisbon came back to its true nature in the European Union with its ultra modern architecture and economic life. Once again, it has become one of the greatest European metropolises. The narrator in the film is Peter Coyote, an avid fan of poetry and European culture. This poetic and rather comprehensive documentary represents one of the highlights in this program of Ibero-American films. The director, Fonseca e Costa, apparently an admirer of Pessoa’s poetry, is a Portuguese born in Angola in 1933. He moved to Lisbon in 1945 and was one of the founders of modern Portuguese cinema, a translator of Sergei Eisenstain and Guido Aristarco’s film theory to Portuguese and assistant director to Michelangelo Antonioni in L'Eclisse.

Born in 1908 in Porto, Manoel de Oliveira is not only the oldest active Portuguese director, but is quite likely the most long lived director in the world. Of all the works from his long and rich career, his film Non, ou a Va Gloria de Mandar (Non, or the Vain Glory of Command, 1990) holds a special place. In it, the author bravely engaged in a heated intellectual discussion about the war and colonialism, through the film procedures he used as well as the idea itself. The film opens with a discussion led by Portuguese soldiers – a mobilized professor and other members of his brigade – during a tank ride to the location where they will fight the Angolan rebels. This discussion, and later the fight itself, is combined with flashbacks that go all the way back to the Roman Empire (battle scenes from the epic poem The Lusiads by the famous Portuguese writer Luis de Camoes). During the colonial wars, Guerra do Ultramar, led by Portugal in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissao, many crimes were committed on both sides. Thus, Oliviera’s film is a political reckoning with the premier Salazar, a conservative Catholic politician who was in charge of Portugal from the 1930’s to 1970’s, after inheriting the stormy years of the first republic that lasted from 1910 to 1926. Oliveira denies the myths of national bravery when it comes to colonial conquests and elevates the value of human lives against the fake mythical image of the great nation. However, while Fonseca convincingly leads us through the beauty and sorrow of Portuguese and European poetry, history and art, in his ambitious intent Oliveira fails to impress because of directing and dramaturgical omissions, as well as a drawn out plot and often theatrical stiff acting and seemingly contrived action.

There cannot be a serious program of Ibero-American film that does not include a film whose hero is music. The Brazilian film by Ricardo Van Steen Noel, Poeta da Vila (The Samba Poet, 2006) is a story about Noel de Medeirosa Rosa, Brazilian composer, singer and guitarist and one of the greatest composers of Brazilian popular music. Noel Rosa gave new life to samba, combining its Afro-Brazilian roots with urbane, poetic and funny lyrics consisting of ironic social commentaries. The story starts in 1930s Rio de Janeiro: Noel Rosa is a white boy, born to a middle-class family from the well-know neighborhood of Vila Isabel. Because of a difficult birth, he was recognizable by his deformed chin even in childhood. Although he began studying medicine, he devoted most of his time to music and played the guitar. He preferred the company of black people from the favelas, prostitutes and factory workers rather than socializing with his clean-cut peers from the same social class. His friend, composer Ismael Silva, introduced him to the world of samba and soon Rosa composed Com que roupa?, a parody of the Brazilian national hymn that was an unbelievable success. Noel flew through the golden age of radio like a comet and drastically changed the development of Brazilian popular music. In between love affairs and samba duels, this brilliant composer hurriedly followed his star until an illness stopped him. Noel started to feel the warning signs of tuberculosis at an early age. He sometimes went on mountain retreats for rehabilitation, but always came back to Rio and his intense nightlife. He was married to his lovely seventeen-year-old neighbor Lindaura Martins, but always had affairs with other women. He was a heavy smoker and in most photographs, he holds a cigarette. In the second half of the 1930s, his health worsened significantly and the young genius died in 1937 at the age of twenty-six. With its poetic atmosphere and excellent actors, the film helps us to better understand the great culture of samba which has spread from Brazil throughout the entire global village.

Habana Blues (2005) by the Spanish director Benito Zambran, won the highly prestigious Spanish Goya film award in 2006 (Best Editing and Best Original Music). Zambrano was nominated for Best Director and, according to audiences and critics, all three nominations were more than deserved. Habana Blues is more a portrayal of a time, culture and identity than a film of emotional nuances for which the author showed significant talent in his debut Alone (1999). Even though music is its hero, it is not a sequel to the famous Buena Vista Social Club, but rather has its own story, atmosphere and a beautiful soundtrack – the musical tastes of audiences are definitely crucial to liking this film.

Ruy (Alberto Joel Garcia Osorio) and his friend Tito (Roberto Sanmartin), who has dreadlocks and owns a beautiful red 1952 Chevy, are the members of the Habana Blues band, specializes in rock-soul fusion. Ruy’s devotion to music results in chaos in his personal life. He lives with Caridad (Yailene Sierra) and they have two children. They are broke; Caridad dropped out of school in order to work and support Ruy’s dreams and ambitions. Tito lives with his grandma (beautifully portrayed by Zenia Marabal), a picturesque former singer who smokes cigars.

The boys meet Spanish music producers, Marta (Marta Calvo) and Lorenzo (Roger Pera) who invite them to Spain where they can develop their career. Ruy starts an affair with Marta, so Caridad leaves him and takes the kids to Miami to start a new life. At that moment Ruy faces a classic dilemma: he has to chose between his family and fame, between preserving his musical integrity and selling out his talent. Unfortunately, in terms of film dynamics, once the dilemma is apparent, nothing else happens and the film does not seem to go anywhere. The dilemma is solved in the final five-minute sequence. Garcia Osoro tries to make Ruy an interesting and complex character but does not succeed in evoking the necessary emotion until the very end. On the other hand, Caridad is a beautiful character and the actress Sierra uses that foundation beautifully. The film has very few exterior shots so there are not many usual picturesque scenes of Havana, apart from a few shots from the air and a short sequence in the rain. The film is dominated by the shabby interiors that evoke the old glamour, such as the huge theatre in which Habana Blues is supposed to play. Of course the music is great.

In 2007, Brazilian Bruno Barreto directed the comedy Caixa Dois (Money on the Side) in which a dirty businessman and bank owner Luiz Fernando mistakenly deposits a large amount of money, intended as a bribe to his secretary and lover, to Angelina’s account, an honest woman whose husband Roberto was just fired from the same bank together with five hundred other employees. Roberto decides to kill Luiz Fernando…. This is a light and fluffy comedy of errors with critical notes on corruption and financial peddling and a cynical relationship to moral values. It represents an excellent counterpoint to the usually poetic and not often successful films with surreal tones from this part of the world. The acting and directing are solid, even though the story has an inconsistent rhythm at times. In short, this film by Bruno Barreto is a likeable pastime but not necessarily a film to remember.

Chilean cinema is represented by two comedies. The much more successful of the two is Cristian Galazo and Andrea Ugalde’s El regalo (The Gift, 2008) story about the excellent university professor of physics and widower Francisco who has just retired. The very next day, which happens to be his seventieth birthday, he decides to commit suicide, certain that the old age brings only sorrow and humiliation. His two best friends, Nicolas, a former navy officer and Tito, an old hippie who still believes in the ideals of his youth, especially free love, prevent him. The three of them have been friends all of their lives and meet every night to play poker. When Tito and Nicolas realize that their friend is depressed, on the day of his planned suicide they show up with tickets for a trip. The situation gets more complicated when they are joined by the irresistible Carmen and the likeable Lucy, a virgin willing to experience love for the first time… After many misunderstandings, this crowd pleaser ends happily, but at the same time makes very good use of its opportunities and gently reminds us of all aspects of old age – loneliness, feelings of worthlessness, depression and especially the prejudices of social environments that tend to think of old people as obsolete. Even though the film is a bit too long, the dialogues are interesting and the acting crew convincing and well balanced, giving the audience the feeling that they really enjoyed making the film, so that all the film’s flaws are easy to forgive.

Cachimba (2004) is the debut comedy by the Chilean director, screenwriter and cinematographer Silvio Caiozzi. Even though Cachimba is a poetic-surreal film with slapstick humor, in its essence it is a sad story. The hero, Marcos is a bank clerk who loves art. While on vacation, he stumbles upon a collection of paintings in an abandoned castle. With his naïve girlfriend Hilda, he decides to preserve the paintings by an unknown Chilean genius for the future. However, a gang of thieves as well as the media follows him. Marcos has to face the hypocrisy and corruption of public institutions that treat his discovery without any responsibility or interest in using it for their own promotion and profit. Marcos is definitely a modern Quixote, a hero of losing battles. Julio Jung is wonderful as Marcos, but the surreal tones are often dramaturgically empty so that Cachimba turns out to be an arduous film after all. Unfortunately its stylistic puns most of the time do not have any artistic justification.

Azuloscurocasinegro (Darkbluealmostblack, 2006) is a feature debut by the Spanish director Daniel Sanchez Arevalo, who also wrote the screenplay. According to most critics, Areval justified their expectations after a series of short films that were also well accepted. Azuloscurocasinegro is a drama that exudes authenticity and has convincing characters, so it is not surprising that Arevalo won the Goya for Best Director in 2007.

Twenty-year-old Jorge (Quim Gutierrez) is a janitor desperate to find a new job, but cannot because he has to take care of his ill father. Jorge’s brother Antonio (Antonio de la Torre) is supposed to get out of prison soon. It was there he met Paula (Marta Etura) during a theatre workshop. They immediately feel attracted to each other and have sex… Jorge spends his afternoons on a roof with his friend Israel (Raul Arevalo), who is confused about his sexual identity. From the roof, the two of them watch the activities in a nearby massage parlor and find out that Israel’s fathers goes there as well. To complicate things even more, Jorge receives a postcard from his childhood sweetheart Natalia (Eva Pallares), who returns from Germany where she studied. The characters have dangerous relationships - Antonio begs Jorge to sleep with Paula because she cannot get pregnant with him. The main topic of Arevalo’s film is the kind of confusion that twenty-something-year-olds feel when they have to make important life and sexual choices. The acting is excellent; Quim Gutierrez plays Jorge as a gentle and controlled man with underlying tension, which erupts in the last half hour of the film. His brother Antonio is his antithesis - de la Torres plays with the comical side of his character. Visually, the film is well executed and low light is often used to accentuate the heroes’ claustrophobic lives. This approach is in line with the film’s “colorful” title – dark blue almost black, which is in fact the color of Jorge’s suit. Moreover, in the end, the inspiration of the magician of Spanish film is apparent in this film as well – all agree that the director must have taken his ideas about the Madrid working class characters from Almodovar. (Alemka Lisinski)