Film Festival 09 - Eccentricities of A Blond Girl
Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl
Singularidades de uma rapariga loura, Portugal/France/Spain 2009,
63m
Director: Manoel de Oliviera
Festivals: Berlin, Karlovy Vary 2009
Cinema's centenarian Manoel de Oliveira (born 1908) transposes a
19th-century tale of romantic pursuit to 21st-century Lisbon,
retaining, to rich and strange effect, every anachronistic detail
of courtship and social convention. A young clerk spies the
eponymous blond beauty at her balcony from his office directly
across the street. His subsequent pursuit of her is an affair of
tests, challenges and surprising discoveries. - BG. "Actorly
stiffness and precise diction in opulently lit and exquisitely
framed shots are a powerful measure of the forcefulness of belief
of these characters, as well as the underlying depth and richness
of such simple drama within such strict social mores& Pure as
rain water and just as lacking in pretension& the film is as
deliciously droll about its romantic quest as the light rustle and
the subtle transparency of the layers of curtains covering the
young girl's window are simmering and sensual." - Daniel Kasman,
The Auteurs
In Portuguese with English subtitles
