O Gebo ea Sombra

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Movie
Original title O Gebo e A Sombra
Country of production Portugal , France
original language French
Publishing year 2012
length 91 minutes
Rod
Director Manoel de Oliveira
script Raul Brandão
Manoel de Oliveira
production Luís Urbano
Sandro Aguilar
Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre
music Jean Sibelius
Ferruccio Busoni
Shostakovich
camera Renato Berta
cut Valérie Loiseleux
occupation

O Gebo ea Sombra (French title: Gebo et l´ombre , in German: Gebo und der Schatten) is a Portuguese - French feature film by the Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira from 2012 .

action

At the end of the 19th century the honest, frail accountant Gebo went about his work with increasing difficulty. He lives with his wife and his daughter-in-law, who has grown dear to him, in simple, deficient circumstances. The family is overshadowed by their son João, who has disappeared a few years ago. In order not to discourage his wife too much, Gebo invents messages from his son that he pretends to receive from informants. One day, João suddenly returns to his wife and parents, and a more relaxed everyday life returns to the family home. João, who has returned changed, endures the modest circumstances less and less, until he lets himself be carried away to a mean deed that overturns the shaky peace of the family, who, despite all worries, have always remained respectable.

production

Manoel de Oliveira (* 1908) filmed the four-act act of the same name written by Raul Brandão (1867–1930) in 1923 . Oliveira sees the issue of poverty and its effect on people being dealt with here and sees it as a particularly topical reference.

The film was shot entirely in a film studio in Paris, at the express request of the director. It was filmed in 2011 and had a budget of 1.6 million euros. a. from the Portuguese film promotion institute ICA and the French CNC .

reception

The atmospheric, calm film is only a little different from the original. He seldom plays outside of the family's usually dimly lit living room. The critics praised the consistently convincing performances of the sovereign actors, who are strongly in the foreground here and whose expression comes closer to the viewer than usual. However, it has occasionally been noted that this approach makes little use of the advantages of the cinema over the theater. The work received top marks, especially in the French press, but was also rated by some as not very entertaining.

The film was screened at various international film festivals , including the Venice International Film Festival in 2012 , where it was shown outside of competition. In Portugal, he was nominated for the Best Film category at both the Caminhos do Cinema Português Film Festival , and the Globos de Ouro Awards.

In 2013 the film was released on DVD both in France (by Epicenter Films) and in Portugal, here in the original French with Portuguese subtitles (by ZON Audiovisuais, a subsidiary of ZON Multimédia ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Contents of the MEDIA Films Database, accessed on November 4, 2013
  2. ↑ Article from July 25, 2011 on the cinema website of the Portuguese television channel TVI , accessed on November 4, 2013
  3. ^ German-language film criticism in the Swiss film portal www.outnow.ch, accessed on November 4, 2013
  4. ↑ Overview of film reviews by the press on the French film portal www.allocine.fr, accessed on November 4, 2013
  5. ↑ DVD case O Gebo ea Sombra , ZON Audiovisuais, Lisbon 2013
  6. ^ Awards for the film in the Internet Movie Database , accessed November 4, 2013