Elegant Perversions: The Cinema of João César Monteiro
Silvestre
João César Monteiro (Portugal, 1981)
- When
- Sun Sep 19, 2010
- Where
- Pacific Film Archive (PFA)
- Time
- 4:00-5:58 PM
- Cost
- $5.50 - $9.50
- Tags
- Movies, Foreign
Description
A radiant Maria de Medeiros stars in this early Monteiro work, feverishly staged as a 15th-century religious painting and based on two ancient Portuguese tales of young damsels illicitly seduced by older men, and their subsequent vengeance. The fragile beauty Silvia (de Medeiros) and her sister Susana are abused by a sinister villain in the night; several courtships, weddings, and years later, young Silvia has disguised herself as a man (“Silvestre”) to fight in the war, but meets, once again, the villain. “Those who speak to me of love will pay dearly for it,” she vows, before proving it. But Monteiro’s less interested in the tale than how it is told. Placing his becalmed actors in front of increasingly lurid, beautifully painted sets (complete with richly colored backdrops and even front-projected imagery), Monteiro takes the art of tableaux back a few hundred years to embrace the colors, madness, and ecstatic beauty of framing, and presenting, myth.—Jason Sanders• Written by Monteiro, Maria Velho da Costa. Photographed by Acácio de Almeida. With Maria de Medeiros, Teresa Madruga, Luís Miguel Cintra, Jorge Silva Melo. (118 mins, In Portuguese with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, From Lusomondo)
More Info
- Link
- http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/filmseries/
- Call
- 510.643.2197
- Call
- 510.642.5249 (Box Office)
- Contact Form (account required)
Comments