Film info: Mistérios de Lisboa
Film Information
Original Title | Mistérios de Lisboa |
---|---|
English Title | Mysteries of Lisbon |
Director | Raul Ruiz |
Country | ![]() |
Year | 2010 |
Format | DCP |
Colour | Color |
Duration | 266 min |
Cast:
- Adriano Luz, Maria João Bastos, Ricardo Pereira, Clotilde Hesme, Afonso Pimentel
Production:
- Guión: Carlos Saboga
- Fotografía: André Szankowski
- Montaje: Valéria Sarmiento, Carlos Madaleno
- Producción: Paulo Branco
Synopsis
A long time ago, Raul Ruiz discovered what to do with literature in cinema: it’s not about adapting novels, but to inhabit them. It’s not like there is a real world, a separate fictional one created by the writer, and a third one –eventually similar to the first one– which is copied by the filmmaker. For Ruiz these three worlds are a single one, and once you write a novel, its characters have the same entity as historical figures or living people do. Cinema has to start acknowledging their condition of definitive creatures and put them in action so they can do the same thing they did at some point; or any other thing as well. Without having to go through the terrible effort of being reinvented, characters can then float steeped in the lightness and grace their eternity grants them. Based on a 19th century Portuguese novel, this miniseries –which had to be cut down to the most entertaining four-and-a-half hours in history in order to get a theatrical release– has the same audacity and suspense as the best soap operas: its infinite chain of stories could go on forever. Audiences will be able to verify that its fabulous main character, Father Denis, has always existed.
Date and Times