Portuguese director/national treasure
Manoel de Oliveira died today at the age of 106. By most accounts he
was the oldest active filmmaker, and by any account the shape and
span of his career was virtually unparallelled. His first film,
“Douro, Faina Fluvial”(“Labor on The Douro River") was a silent
movie released in 1931; a bit later, “The Strange Case of Angelica”
(2010) employed digital animation to relate its exquisite tale of
haunted love. Perhaps the only parallel to Oliveira's film career is
that of film itself.
Oliveira was largely silenced in the
middle of the 20th century by oppressive censorship from
the right-wing regime in Portugal. After 1942's “Aniki-Bóbó”
he shot only one feature and several documentary shorts over the next
quarter century. He was merely resting up for the greatest stretch
run cinema has ever witnessed.
From
the '70s on, Oliveira seemed to become more prolific with each
passing decade. Oliveira released more than twenty films, a
mix of features and shorts, in the 21st
century, a century he greeted a few weeks after his 92nd
birthday.
Oliveira's
output as a nonagenarian and centenarian certainly contributed to his
beloved status among cinephiles around the world, but he was no aged
trick pony. His films, often about doomed love (indeed he made a
mini-series called “Doomed Love”), were sensitive, literary,
meticulously staged works of deceptive simplicity that speak to an
eye that saw clearly well past the century mark. They would be great
and celebrated films from a mere lad of eighty, or thirty for that
matter.
Below
I have re-posted my 2008 review of Oliveira's “Belle Toujours”
which I'm not even sure ranks as one of his top five movies made
since turning 90, but which is still a modest gem. For other great
Oliveira films on DVD and Blu-ray, I recommend the Cinema Guild
releases of “Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl” (2010) and
the aforementioned “The Strange Case of Angelica” which also
includes that first short “Douro, Faina Fluvia.” And if you can
find a copy of the Image Entertainment's release of “I'm Going
Home” (2001), one of Oliveira's finest, pounce on it.
BELLE TOUJOURS (the great Manoel de Oliveira, 2006)
New Yorker Films, DVD, Release Date June 24, 2008
Review by Christopher S. Long
It’s rare that I get to write about a
hundred year old director but, to be fair, Manoel de Oliveira was
merely a lad of 97 when he made “Belle Toujours” (2006). Also to
be fair, de Oliveira has to wait another 5 months before he
officially makes it to 100, but considering that he has released two
features and two shorts in the last two years and has one of each in
production in the current year, he doesn’t appear to be slowing
down any time soon. He made his first short film in 1931, and his
first feature in 1942 after which his career was derailed for nearly
15 years, and he would not release his next feature film until 1963
when, at the age of 55, he finally got things cranking.
As if flipping off Father Time,
Oliveira has been more productive in the past decade than at any
other time in his career, releasing 18 films (features and shorts)
since 1998, nearly half his lifetime output. Please note that it is
old hat (pun intended) to discuss Manoel de Oliveira’s age these
days, but since this is the first opportunity I have had to write
about this remarkable director, I’m entitled. I promise not to say
a word about it over his next hundred years.
With “Belle Toujours,” Oliveira has
made perhaps his oddest film, intended as a sequel of sorts to Luis
Buñuel’s landmark “Belle de Jour” (1967). Except that “sequel”
isn’t the right term; rather it’s an afterword written long, long
after the main text. “Belle de Jour” is one of Buñuel’s most
perverse and perverted films (and I mean that in a good way), the
story of a bored housewife named Severine (Catherine Deneuve) who
loves her devoted husband but still chooses to spend her days working
in a high-end brothel. She harnesses her inner masochist with the
help of her husband’s best friend Henri (Michel Piccoli) and an
array of twisted clients.
“Belle Toujours” kicks off at a
concert in which the much older but not necessarily any wiser Henri
(played again by Michel Piccoli) spots the much older and possibly
wiser Severine (played this time by Bulle Ogier) in the audience. He
stare at her as if trying to mesmerize his former object of desire,
but she proves elusive and disappears in a limo before he can speak
to her. Henri is nothing if not dogged, however, and he soon tracks
her down at her hotel. She has no interest whatsoever in catching up
with her “old friend,” but he persuades her to have dinner with
him. While killing time, he also stops in a bar to recount his story
(the story of “Belle de Jour”) to an easily impressed bartender
(Ricardo Trêpa, the director's grandson and star of some of
Oliveira's later films) which isn’t really intended as exposition
for the viewers, but further confirmation of Henri’s vanity.
You might be thinking this is a reunion
story of sorts. That is, if you know nothing about Buñuel or
Oliveira which, apparently, is true of whoever wrote the summary at
Rotten Tomatoes which ludicrously describes the film as “a short
and sweet elegy on aging, sexuality, and the power of cinema.”
“Belle Toujours” picks up right
where “Belle de Jour” left off, digging perhaps into even more
perverse territory. Henri’s patrician façade has no doubt fooled
many a socialite into thinking him quite the gentleman, but his
intentions to Severine are anything but honorable. Severine, we
discover, has “redeemed” herself in the ensuing four decades,
devoting herself to her husband and to God. Henri cannot let this
affront to nature stand, and plays sadistic mind-games with her, and
the real mystery for us to confront is whether Severine, despite her
protestations, is every bit as much into humiliation as she ever was.
Indeed, what else could she possibly expect when she (not so?)
grudgingly accepts his invitation to dinner? Oliveira’s subversion
of the need for the closure one might expect from a reunion narrative
is his slyest, and cruelest, touch. Buñuel would be proud.
Indeed, the film is permeated by the
spirit of Buñuel, not just in its direct references to “Belle de
Jour” (a picture here, a gift there) but in its relationship to his
entire work. Viewers unfamiliar with Buñuel might be puzzled when
the film appear to continue one scene “too long” after the main
characters have exited and the servants are talking to each other,
but it’s the sort of moment that cropped up again in again in
Buñuel’s work, most notably in his masterpiece “Exterminating
Angel” (1962).
Piccoli, as usual, is brilliant. Though
a mere whippersnapper next to de Oliveira, Piccoli has been a screen
star for sixty years now, and has done some of his best work in
recent years, especially with Oliveira (Piccoli was also phenomenal
in 2001's “I’m Going Home”), and he relishes his opportunity to
re-visit one of his best-known roles. Here, Henri Husson makes the
leap from supporting character to protagonist with Severine as more
of a fringe character who flits about the edges of the screen until
the climactic dinner sequence. Bulle Ogier cannot match the screen
presence of Catherine Deneuve, but she isn’t called on to do much
here except to simply be Severine.
Will you be unable to enjoy “Belle
Toujours” if you aren’t a Buñuel aficionado? No, though it’s
fair to say you won’t necessarily be fully in tune with de
Oliveira’s project. Even on its own, the film is an ambling,
amusing psychosexual cat and mouse game which proves that the march
of time doesn’t mean you have to be any less of a sick bastard.
That’s a theme we can all identify with.
The film is presented in a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. Though the transfer is interlaced, it’s unusually strong by New Yorker’s standards. The color saturation is just right (sometimes a problem with this studio) and the image quality is fairly sharp. Still, it would be nice if they could offer progressive transfers in the near future.
The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0. Optional English subtitles support the French audio.
With such a short film, it would have been nice to get a few more extras. What we get isn’t bad though. There are four interviews, the best of which, of course, are the ones with de Oliveira (23 min.) and Piccoli (9 min.) Interviews with Bulle Ogier (5 min.) and
Ricardo Trêpa (2 min.) provide a few
brief perspectives on working with the veteran director.
Also included are a Trailer, a Photo
Gallery and a Press Kit which can be accessed as a PDF file on your
PC.
Film Value:
At 65 minutes (not counting the end
credits), this strange coda to “Belle de Jour” is over almost as
soon as it starts or, more accurately, speeds away after its
lightning-strike hit and run job. I suppose you could consider this
film to be a meditation on aging (as many critics have written), but
it’s a pretty pervy one and surely not a “sweet elegy” of
any kind. In all honesty, I like this film more than “Belle de
Jour” which, I admit, is not one of my favorite Buñuels. Long
live Michel Piccoli! Long live Manoel de Oliveira! Well, I guess
they’ve already done that. But you know what I mean.
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