The European co-production industry boards a Night Train to Lisbon (2011)

Sometimes, watching films is bloody hard. Does it ever happen to you, as well? Do you sometimes get the feeling that certain films don't make any sense -from the point of view of the industry insider or film studies professional at least? Have you never wondered why a film got made (or, to elaborate, why such an amount of money had to be spent for a disastrous, tasteless result), why the star-cast ever got involved and so on so forth? What I get as an intuitive answer to my questions is rather ludicrous set of two things: there is a certain budget to be spent on film production -I'm mainly talking about (largely) subsidised European film production here- and an inability to spot/dig out/scout  new talents.

Sick and tired of the European co-production industry -mostly deviating from its target I'd like to propose something radical: we should get over with productions based-on-flimsy-scripts-based-on historical-events  once and for all. Now, really, we've seen enough Napoleons, and Tsars and Dukes and Duchesses. We ought to engage a bit with now-ness, the current affairs, the pressing socio-political issues, create fictional brave new heroes; and to do that efficiently we should look for good writers. Ah, let me not forget: we ought to stop entirely the sloppy process of re-writing a best-seller into a script, and then off to the screen. Why? Because, while writing a certain type of book is not such a hard thing for gifted individuals (as the only official species of the elaborate spoken language, we are, after all, acquainted to the rules of story-telling more than anything), drafting any written version to be translated into visual material is not half as easy as it seems.

Lines of Wellington (2012)

There was, apparently, a great deal of buzz for what was the up-and-coming project of Raul Ruiz in 2011. Then, sadly enough, he passed away. His wife, a certain Valeria Sarmiento, chilean film-maker and Ruiz's collaborator took over the project and happily finished it; a bit more than two hours of epic deeds, blood, corpses, the madness of war; with a quasi-stellar cast: John Malkovich as General Wellington - he could be a Buffon-, Marisa Paredes and numerous others who mainly do more or less cameo roles, but they are oh-so-glamorous: Melville Poupaud, Mathieu Amalric, Michel Piccoli, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Chiara Mastroianni and we're not yet finished: there are also the young and beautiful Elsa Zylberstein and Jemima West.

We're talking about a French-portuguese co-production and there are plenty of well-known Portuguese actors in lead characters -I only decide not to mention them by name, because probably they don't make any sense to most of us. The film was also cut in a TV-series version and was sold -as far as I know- in Canada (!); it was also released in Portugal, under the title As Lignas des Torres Vedras (2012). 

Hannah Arendt (2012)

What a joy to return home and find the books you ordered waiting for you near your chocolate (or fruit, it's also ok.) I just received my long awaiting books that belong to Political Science/Philosophy section, as they clearly state. Two hot titles On Violence and The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt, leading political thinker of our times that I discovered -blame it on my arts and culture education- through cinema. Which is a passionate and efficient tool not only to tell stories and entertain, but also to open windows to another part of this world, which is totally disconnected to our microcosm and to get messages through.

In this sense, watching Hannah Arendt biopic was an eye-opening experience. It brought me to her and her strong detachment from sentimental thinking, which is one of the qualities I have a love and hate relationship with.

The film  per se is a humble biopic that for once doesn't aspire to cover every possible detail of Hannah's life -except for insisting on her being a compulsive smoker-, but just a certain incident in her life. With very few flashbacks and a fine sense of nowness the film describes her involvement in Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem, revealing her strong, defiant personality, one devoted to the discovery of truth (if there is one) rather than to a narcissistic self of being, devoted to fans (sic) devotion.

The concert (2009)

It was not always clear that snobbery is the most problematic act of them all; it took me years to realise. Once upon a time I remember myself scoffing at people; as  well as I remember my mother reproaching me with the who-do-you-think-you-are look, and that was probably the best thing she ever did. She taught me to treat my fellow humans as equals. Not with lengthy explanations of any kind, no; only with a transient mood, a sense of empathy I could not grasp at the time -it seemed as an act of unneeded kindness. Until my little self grew up to understand that status quo,  education, looks, taste and so many other things that falsely define us in life are not a product of choice, but rather a mere gift of chance.

The Convent (1995)

Religiousness is embedded in everyday life, you cannot escape it. There's no point even in trying; frankly, I've given up. I prefer to submerge in the religious experience nowadays, not as a believer, but as a tourist. Religions have certain things to bring to a dry post-modern life, as Alain de Botton noticed recently.

Having visited the Cathedral in Nancy and having bought  a dozen of the famous macarons, I settled in my couch and decided to watch the seven-year-old Convent (1995); not so much for the pious title, as for his stars and especially his perennial Festivals favourite Manoel de Oliveira. I started eating the macarons -they were made following a secret nuns' recipe- and I pushed play. The titles were a bit kitschy -a canary yellow tone- but auterism is bizzare sometimes, so I persevered.