Os Imortais

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Movie
Original title Os Imortais
Country of production Portugal , France , Luxembourg , Great Britain
original language Portuguese , French
Publishing year 2003
length 130 minutes
Rod
Director Antonio-Pedro Vasconcelos
script Vicente Alves do Ó
António-Pedro Vasconcelos
Claire Downs
António Tavares Teles
production Jani Thiltges
António da Cunha Telles
music Guest Waltzing
camera Barry Ackroyd
cut Antonio-Pedro Vasconcelos
occupation

Os Imortais ( Portuguese for: The Immortals ) is a 2003 film by the Portuguese director António-Pedro Vasconcelos .

action

Four veterans of a special unit of the Portuguese colonial war , the Imortais , meet every year, accompanied by four women, for an extravagant short vacation. In 1985 she met her in the Algarve, in Albufeira . There they carry out a bank robbery, but despite his success, it does not go smoothly, and the unconditional cohesion of the group is shaken , especially by the company of Aluas, the French femme fatale Madeleine Durand. The detective inspector Malarranha is a few days before his retirement when he takes on this case. In private, too, the paths of all those involved are increasingly crossing. After a series of acts of violence and deaths, the film ends with a retired commissioner who finds his calling as a guitarist in the Fado bar of the only survivor of the four Imortais .

background

The four veterans are characterized by harshness and violence. They are successful members of society, but they have never been able to break out of their roles and have never made friends with the social changes in the country after the Carnation Revolution . They commemorate their fifth comrade, who died during a commando operation under unexplained circumstances, whose charred corpse could never be clearly identified. In the course of the film it turns out that their leader Alua is the only one who knows the surprising truth. The four veterans represent the backward- looking part of society shaped by the Estado Novo regime and traumatized by the colonial war.

The obese Commissioner Malarranha plays the Portuguese guitar and likes Fado , lives in Alfama , is a Benfica fan and is suspicious of his young bureaucratic and career-oriented colleagues and superiors. Using his character, the film also traces the mood in the country in the mid-1980s, which is characterized by the rise of the yuppies and the conservative-neoliberal era of Cavaco Silva and for many in the country the final farewell to the utopias of the Carnation Revolution and a Portuguese social Meant way.

production

The shooting posed challenges for the director and his team. Three languages ​​were spoken on the set, and the tightly calculated production days for outdoor shots were accompanied by changing weather conditions and an unusually large amount of rain. During the production, the director also tried to reproduce the film scenes that were set in 1985 as faithfully as possible. Original cars and license plates that were valid before Portugal joined the EU were used, original television speakers were hired and the true-to-original television news studio was reproduced. The interior fittings of the apartments and the clothes and hairstyles have also been adapted to the times.

The leading actress Seigner spoke her mostly Portuguese texts herself at her own request, but without having learned Portuguese, but with the help of pronunciation teachers. Her husband, director Roman Polański , visited his wife several times on the set of the film, with their children.

Mafalda Arnauth wrote and sang a new Fado for the film, which she also performs live in a scene.

The film combines elements of the crime film with questions of the far-reaching social upheavals in Portugal since the colonial war, which affect gender roles, social conventions and social issues. However, it is always aimed at a large audience that wants to be entertained. The film also has humorous conversations, erotic scenes and action parts.

reception

The film corresponds to the line of former Novo Cinema directors who process relevant content in entertaining films. Vasconcelos became the most successful exponent of this direction. The criticism highlighted the acting achievements in the film, which also featured prominent supporting roles, and was positively surprised by Paula Mora, previously known only as a theater actress, and Rui Unas, known only as a comic television actor.

The film won the Globo de Ouro 2004 for best actor ( Nicolau Breyner ) and was awarded the audience award for best film at the Caminhos do Cinema Português in Coimbra .

In 2004, the film was released as a multi-lingual subtitled DVD in a double DVD collector's edition ( Edição Coleccionador ) by Lusomundo in Portugal and again in 2010 as a DVD pack with Vasconcelo's film Jaime (1999).

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.filmesportugueses.com , accessed January 18, 2013
  2. ↑ Audio commentary by the director on the DVD, interview with the director in the bonus part of the second DVD of the 2004 collector's edition
  3. ↑ Audio commentary by the director on the DVD, interview with the director in the bonus part of the second DVD of the 2004 collector's edition
  4. ↑ Jorge Leitão Ramos : Dicionário do Cinema Português 1989-2003 Editorial Caminho , Lisbon 2005, page 303f ( ISBN 972-21-1763-7 )
  5. ↑ www.imdb.com , accessed January 18, 2013