"Lisbon Secrets": Portuguese saga of the Chilean master

One of the last experiments of the great director who fled to France from Chile from the Pinochet regime - a kind of Portuguese epic is akin to "War and Peace." This is the "Lisbon mysteries", the film production of the incredible Raul Ruiz.

Flashbacks and love triangles

The producer managed to finish the work on this mini-series (the version for the wide screen lasts more than 4 hours), while the picture "Night Again" was mounted after the death of the famous postmodernist. "Lisbon mysteries" are compared by critics not only with the great four-book of Leo Tolstoy (due to the proximity of epochs and scale, a large number of characters), but also with "Paris secrets" by Eugene Syou. The analogy is not due to the similarity of names, rather because of the presence of a riddle, intrigue, which slowly unravels its tangle throughout the tape. However, the similarity of the two "secrets" ends here. Raul Ruiz masterfully plays with time, immersing spectators in all new flashbacks, stringing one love triangle on another. Sometimes it is difficult to understand why the deceased character seems to be alive and healthy already, but the narration delays deeper and does not let go until the very last moment.

Intricate twists and turns

The film "Lisbon Secrets" is based on the novel of the writer, which is called neither more nor less "Portuguese Flaubert" or even "Balzac". This is Camille Castel Branco. Since our viewers are very little familiar with the literature of this most Western European country, they will be interested in everything from entourage and costumes (which are simply magnificent) to the motivation of the characters. The same as the master Ruiz ordered script material - this is a special art, but this has already been said above. The protagonist of the picture is the orphan boy Pedro, brought up in an orphanage. On the screen there passes practically all life of this character, persistently going to the goal, and it at it, at first sight, is very simple: to identify itself in this world. He is helped by a spiritual mentor, Father Dinisch (a character who turned out to be another "dark horse"). The throwing of Pedro, who is played by three actors during the film, is completely justified: such details are opened, which precede his birth, that you can go crazy. Such vicissitudes can not be briefly described. This is the director's full use: there is an expanded version of his creation - the series "Lisbon Secrets", the duration of which is almost 6 hours.

Honored awards

Like many adventurous costume melodramas, the "Lisbon mysteries" follow their unwritten canons. Thus, an illegitimate child, who was raised without a father and mother, must necessarily belong to an aristocratic family. That's Pedro - the fruit of the passionate hopeless love of the Countess mother, against her will marrying a disgusting and disgusting person (though, just this unwanted spouse is equal to her, unlike the father of a poor inmate of the orphanage). Actors (unfortunately, their surnames have little to say to the domestic audience) play great, as if born in the XIX century. Not only casting was successful, but also surprisingly delicate camera work (bravely, Andre Shankovski!). It is not for nothing that the "Lisbon Secrets" received several prestigious awards. This, in particular, the San Sebastian "Silver Shell", the award to the director (named after Louis Delluc), the Portuguese "Golden Globe". The painting became an ornament of the festival in Toronto, Canada, where its premier show was held.