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A Talking Picture
A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.
| Release : | 2003 |
| Rating : | 6.6 |
| Studio : | France 2 Cinéma, Gemini Films, Madragoa Filmes, |
| Crew : | Production Design, Director of Photography, |
| Cast : | Leonor Silveira John Malkovich Catherine Deneuve Stefania Sandrelli Irene Papas |
| Genre : | Drama History |
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Reviews
Good movie but grossly overrated
I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.
A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
Manoel de Oliveira was a Portuguese director who directed his first movie in the 1940s. He continued directing in the 21st century before dying in 2015 at the age of 106, making him the oldest working director ever. I haven't seen most of his work, but "Um Filme Falado" ("A Talking Picture" in English) is an interesting movie. It depicts a woman and her daughter on a cruise from Portugal to India, and the famous women whom they meet. Most impressive is the dinner scene. The woman and her daughter sit at a table with the women (Catherine Deneuve, Stefania Sandrelli and Irene Papas) and the captain (John Malkovich), and each person speaks his/her native language, but they all understand each other. I wish that more movies had scenes like that.Most of the movie will seem slow-moving to the viewer, but there's a surprise in store. It's not a masterpiece but I liked it. I hope to see more of Oliveira's movies, as well as more movies starring Sandrelli and Papas.The director's grandson Ricardo Trêpa appears as an agent.
I spent what seemed like hours (really only 60 minutes) waiting for something to happen in this movie. Although I liked seeing the excellent photos of interesting places that I'd like to visit someday, it seemed this was more a travelogue than a drama. I also thought it was nice to witness a healthy, positive relationship between the mother and daughter. But John Malkowitz seemed a bit affected in both his manner and his role. And what was the reason for the three famous/rich women sitting at the table with him? I kept thinking something was going to happen that involved the three of them but it never did. Then comes the ending -- oh my gosh! Where did that come from? It was totally shocking and not in a good way.
It is arguably the most boring film I've ever seen in my life. Boring and pretentious. European cinema at its worst: no plot, no nothing. I wonder how the director started filming having such an empty script. The stilted monologue of the Portuguese woman who explains things to her daughter makes you feel uncomfortable, simply because you know most of the things, and don't really want to know the rest. The whole first part of the film sounds like a bad documentary from an educational channel: we could have read a guide-book, instead. If you want to watch a good film with an educational background, find a copy of Sophie's World: this is a great film. In the second half, Catherine Deneuve, Irene Papas and Stefania Sandrelly excel in a small talk, and so does John Malkovitch; they wouldn't stop for ages. You begin to anticipate some kind of deus ex machina, and here it duly comes in the form of a bomb. The Talking Picture isn't even bad, it is awful. Avoid!
I struggle to understand how anyone can give this film more than (at most) two stars. The texts the actors have to speak are amongst the most stilted I have ever heard in a film (and I've seen a few shockers). Not only that, very little happens. There is no real story, none of the characters attract our sympathy in the slightest. And, as another reviewer has pointed out, stilted passages (which appear to be copied from slightly out-of-date guide books) are spoken by characters who appear here and there to give us some predigested geographical and historical information while the Acropolis, the Sphinx, Hagia Sophia etc. flit by.You may a better idea of what I mean if I mention (spoiler!) that the dramatic high point of the film occurs when we wonder if a small dog attached to a boat by its lead will get dragged into the water as the boat sways to and fro.Could it be that the bomb (sorry, another spoiler) at the end of the film is a cinematic metaphor for "bored to death"?
