The cinema's most senior filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira, brings us this deceptively simple, perfectly set gem. Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl is based on a short story by José Maria de Eça de Queiroz, the renowned nineteenth-century author often regarded as the Flaubert of Portugal. While on a train bound for the Algarve, a beleaguered man (de Oliveira's grandson and regular lead, Ricardo Trêpa) recounts his troubles to his sympathetic neighbour (Leonor Silveira). He is Macário, a former Lisbon accountant who worked for his uncle's shop and fell madly in love with Luisa (Catarina Wallenstein), the titular blond-haired beauty who lived across the street from his office window. Every day he would spy on her as she coquettishly waved her Chinese fan. When his uncle discouraged him from pursuing the relationship, Macário decamped for Cape Verde, where he could make enough money to ask for Luisa's hand. But an unexpected twist intervenes, and de Oliveira's detached irony, whimsical characters and anachronistic storytelling turn this miniature morality tale into another of his lasting accounts of thwarted love.
Superbly shot, Eccentricities is also a celebration of Portuguese artists. The film's many references to painting and literature add rich textures to the luscious drawing rooms where the characters gather. The only music in the film is a piece played by Ana Paula Miranda on the harp as celebrated actor Luis Miguel Cintra reads a poem in a nod to Portugal's cultural tradition. By turns entertaining and enlightening, de Oliveira's new film displays an incredible youthfulness belying his one hundred years.
In tribute to the director's outstanding career, we also screen his first-ever film, Douro, Faina Fluvial, made at the tail end of the silent era when he was twenty-three years old. Long considered a masterpiece of Portuguese cinema, Douro is an exquisite chiraroscuro, a city symphony depicting Porto's transition between its agricultural past and its industrial future. TIFF Cinematheque devotes a series to de Oliveira this fall, giving Toronto audiences a chance to revisit his early works, which haven't been shown here in nearly twenty years.
Diana Sanchez and Andréa Picard
Manoel de Oliveira was born in Oporto, Portugal. In 2004, he was awarded a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement from the Venice International Film Festival. He has directed dozens of documentary, short and feature films, including the silent
Douro, Faina Fluvial (31),
Aniki-Bóbó (42),
Doomed Love (78),
Le Soulier de satin (85),
Abraham's Valley (93),
Inquiétude (98),
La Lettre (99),
Je rentre à la maison (01),
A Talking Picture (03),
Magic Mirror (05),
Belle toujours (06),
Christopher Columbus: The Enigma (07) and
Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (09).