Gebo and the Shadow is a film about concrete, hard, and material things, as well as one about illusions. Its dramatic elements are simple. The 105-year-old filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira's adaptation of Raul Brandão's 1923 play unfolds almost entirely over one night in a modest home's living room, around whose table a small group of friends and family members gather by candlelight to share food, drinks, and everyday concerns. The presentation is simple as well. Shots are held on static frames within which actors sometimes converse for more than 10 minutes, directly facing the camera as though inviting us to share their company.
In keeping with Brandão, the plot of the Portuguese Oliveira's 31st feature film is clear and straightforward. It concerns Gebo (Mi...
In keeping with Brandão, the plot of the Portuguese Oliveira's 31st feature film is clear and straightforward. It concerns Gebo (Mi...
- 5/28/2014
- Village Voice
The first-ever manufacturer of light bulbs in Portugal, Manoel de Oliveira’s father died in 1932, nine years after Raul Brandão wrote a play called Gebo and the Shadow. In the year 2012 Oliveira turned the play into a film, making a grimy, dim oil lamp its legitimate character: elderly accountant Gebo burns the midnight oil in it as he plods away at his books. In an early scene, meanwhile, his wife lights the lanterns outside their house with a match. No one seems yet to have heard of electricity; the time setting is unclear; presumably, it’s the turn of the century.
Presumably. Oliveira’s Benilde, or The Virgin Mother (1975) opens with a title-card of this word to gradually lure us into a province of utter chronological disorder. This very same word has ever since been unchallenged as the most accurate description of the bizarre, atemporal effect that grows stronger in each subsequent Oliveira film.
Presumably. Oliveira’s Benilde, or The Virgin Mother (1975) opens with a title-card of this word to gradually lure us into a province of utter chronological disorder. This very same word has ever since been unchallenged as the most accurate description of the bizarre, atemporal effect that grows stronger in each subsequent Oliveira film.
- 11/18/2012
- by Boris Nelepo
- MUBI
From Palme d’Or winner “Amour” to the latest offerings from some of the biggest names of world cinema such as Alain Resnais, Abbas Kiarostami, Bernando Bertoluci, Manoel de Oliveira , Brillante Mendoza, Ken Loach, Jacques Audiard, 14th Mumbai Film Festival has a lot to offer to the filmbuffs.
The festival offers an exciting lineup of more than two hundred films, spread over about a dozen screen and seven days! To help our readers decide we’ve picked up the most talked about films from festival circuit.
14th Mff runs from October 18th-25th, 2012 at the National Centre for Performing Arts (Ncpa), and Inox, Nariman Point, Liberty Cinemas, Marine Lines as the main festival venues and Cinemax, Andheri and Cinemax Sion as the satellite venues.
To get delegate pass for the festival, you can register here:
1) Beast of the Southern Wild
Dir.: Benh Zeitlin (USA/ 2012 /Col./ 92’)
Section: International Competition for...
The festival offers an exciting lineup of more than two hundred films, spread over about a dozen screen and seven days! To help our readers decide we’ve picked up the most talked about films from festival circuit.
14th Mff runs from October 18th-25th, 2012 at the National Centre for Performing Arts (Ncpa), and Inox, Nariman Point, Liberty Cinemas, Marine Lines as the main festival venues and Cinemax, Andheri and Cinemax Sion as the satellite venues.
To get delegate pass for the festival, you can register here:
1) Beast of the Southern Wild
Dir.: Benh Zeitlin (USA/ 2012 /Col./ 92’)
Section: International Competition for...
- 9/27/2012
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Dear Fern,
I'm glad you caught Oliveira's Gebo and the Shadow too, and inadvertently placed it next to To the Wonder. I felt like those were inverse films of each other: one constantly floating, the other firmly rooted; one whose spoken words are all offscreen, the other who's words are all stringently, theatrically on camera; the Malick repeating abstractions on light and love, the Oliveira on loss and misery. And each resolutely, repetitiously dedicated to these methods of presentation, fluid, searching philosophy in flitting figures vs. the concrete weight of bodies, age, poverty. Gebo, based on a play by Raul Brandão, saves its magic for outside of its single setting house, a glimpse of a Virgin Mary on a street corner, the flat, computer generated harbor you mention that opens the film, hands coming out of the shadows to grasp at the audience like the gunfighter who ends Edwin S. Porter...
I'm glad you caught Oliveira's Gebo and the Shadow too, and inadvertently placed it next to To the Wonder. I felt like those were inverse films of each other: one constantly floating, the other firmly rooted; one whose spoken words are all offscreen, the other who's words are all stringently, theatrically on camera; the Malick repeating abstractions on light and love, the Oliveira on loss and misery. And each resolutely, repetitiously dedicated to these methods of presentation, fluid, searching philosophy in flitting figures vs. the concrete weight of bodies, age, poverty. Gebo, based on a play by Raul Brandão, saves its magic for outside of its single setting house, a glimpse of a Virgin Mary on a street corner, the flat, computer generated harbor you mention that opens the film, hands coming out of the shadows to grasp at the audience like the gunfighter who ends Edwin S. Porter...
- 9/16/2012
- MUBI
Zhang Ziyi in Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmasters
For about a week now, Ioncinema has been counting down its "Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2012" — and they're almost there. As of this writing, after 99 individual entries filling us in on all that Eric Lavallee knows about the films he's looking forward to, the title that'll land in the #1 spot remains a mystery. I'll update when it appears, but for now, click the titles to see the files on the top 20 so far:
Update, 1/12: And we have a #1:
Carlos Reygadas's Post Tenebras Lux. Michael Haneke's Love. Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master. Terrence Malick's The Burial (that title's likely to change). Olivier Assayas's Something in the Air. Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmasters. Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love. Antonio Campos's Simon Killer. Derek Cianfrance's Place Beyond the Plains. Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone.
For about a week now, Ioncinema has been counting down its "Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2012" — and they're almost there. As of this writing, after 99 individual entries filling us in on all that Eric Lavallee knows about the films he's looking forward to, the title that'll land in the #1 spot remains a mystery. I'll update when it appears, but for now, click the titles to see the files on the top 20 so far:
Update, 1/12: And we have a #1:
Carlos Reygadas's Post Tenebras Lux. Michael Haneke's Love. Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master. Terrence Malick's The Burial (that title's likely to change). Olivier Assayas's Something in the Air. Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmasters. Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love. Antonio Campos's Simon Killer. Derek Cianfrance's Place Beyond the Plains. Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone.
- 1/12/2012
- MUBI
Pablo Ferro is "more popularly known for his work as a master title sequence designer (Dr Strangelove and The Thomas Crown Affair among countless others) and occasionally an actor as well (Greaser's Palace)," writes Marcus Herring in an entry punctuated with clips and exclamations, "but Pablo also crafted a number of the most memorable trailers of all time…. The Cinefamily is devoting an entire evening to showcasing the genius of Pablo Ferro on Tuesday September 27th, with Pablo himself in attendance! He'll bring loads of unavailable commercials (Beachnut Gum!), rare 35mm trailers (the Japanese version of A Clockwork Orange!), lost animations, and of course, his famous title sequences. We'll finish everything off with an ultra-rare presentation of Pablo's 1969 short The Inflatable Doll, starring one of our favorite on-screen strangemen, Don Calfa!" More on Pablo Ferro from Holly Willis; plus, three sites dedicated to his work: 1, 2 and 3.
"Greece, of course,...
"Greece, of course,...
- 9/24/2011
- MUBI
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