First, I'd like to start off by pointing out that visually, this is a beautiful movie. The colours, the costumes, the lights, the focus of the shots are wonderful, but that's hardly something worth of four hours and half of this film.
Second, I created an account on IMDb just so I could write this review.
With that said, this was possibly the most painful movie I've ever the displeasure of watching. The pace is horribly slow, with too many stopped or unnecessary moments, and the silences happen too often, making it very easy to lose focus. Overall, the movie could have easily been cut by one hour without losing any of the story or building up moments.
Then the way these people spoke! I'm assuming that like most Portuguese movies, the actors were theater actors alone, but still, they had to know there was a difference between pretending to be a character and just proclaim their lines like they were just reading them out loud. Everyone spoke a lot about how they felt, but no one ever showed any emotion. 'Show, don't tell' is the basic rule of good story writing, and this certainly wasn't in anyone's mind with the character's feelings. The acting was dull, bland, and in no way did anyone seem to act naturally, especially at the beginning of the movie. The characters were flat, too many of them to the point of confusion, and none were captivating. You couldn't relate or connect to any character, and that's fundamental to the interest of the story.
The story is basically a bad soap opera. The repetitive story lines -- woman has a great love, it goes wrong, becomes a nun; man has a great love, goes wrong as well, becomes a priest; it all going around who slept with who and who married and who didn't, without getting us emotionally involved with the characters. The time skips are more often than not confusing, and it wouldn't have hurt to put a date every time the year changed, at least. It takes about ten minutes for everyone to realize that on the second half, Pedro da Silva is the son, and not another Pedro. (Also, what the hell is with his change of name? It felt like they got it wrong at some point and then didn't change the earlier shots. Only 3 hours later do we know it's intentional, but an explication for the change would have done wonders).
(This part contains the actual spoilers!) And then, as if it wasn't enough that I had to bear through four hours and half of this torture, the ending, "It was a dream all along!" is the most sorry excuse of an ending. It means they didn't know how to end the story, that they had flaws in the plot that needed a quick, easy and lazy fix (no one but Pedro aged, for example, the confusing time jumps, the boring stories), and this crap of an ending invalidates the whole story. Even within the universe of the movie, what I just spend four hours watching didn't happen, because everything after the first five minutes of the movie was just a dream. It's not a plot twist, it's not smart, it's just another pointer of bad story telling. (spoiler's end)
So basically, it has a good picture, bad acting, bad story telling, and bad editing. I watched this movie only at the request and present of an aunt on her birthday, and I don't see how does anyone willingly go through this. This is, by miles, the worst movie I've ever watched.
Second, I created an account on IMDb just so I could write this review.
With that said, this was possibly the most painful movie I've ever the displeasure of watching. The pace is horribly slow, with too many stopped or unnecessary moments, and the silences happen too often, making it very easy to lose focus. Overall, the movie could have easily been cut by one hour without losing any of the story or building up moments.
Then the way these people spoke! I'm assuming that like most Portuguese movies, the actors were theater actors alone, but still, they had to know there was a difference between pretending to be a character and just proclaim their lines like they were just reading them out loud. Everyone spoke a lot about how they felt, but no one ever showed any emotion. 'Show, don't tell' is the basic rule of good story writing, and this certainly wasn't in anyone's mind with the character's feelings. The acting was dull, bland, and in no way did anyone seem to act naturally, especially at the beginning of the movie. The characters were flat, too many of them to the point of confusion, and none were captivating. You couldn't relate or connect to any character, and that's fundamental to the interest of the story.
The story is basically a bad soap opera. The repetitive story lines -- woman has a great love, it goes wrong, becomes a nun; man has a great love, goes wrong as well, becomes a priest; it all going around who slept with who and who married and who didn't, without getting us emotionally involved with the characters. The time skips are more often than not confusing, and it wouldn't have hurt to put a date every time the year changed, at least. It takes about ten minutes for everyone to realize that on the second half, Pedro da Silva is the son, and not another Pedro. (Also, what the hell is with his change of name? It felt like they got it wrong at some point and then didn't change the earlier shots. Only 3 hours later do we know it's intentional, but an explication for the change would have done wonders).
(This part contains the actual spoilers!) And then, as if it wasn't enough that I had to bear through four hours and half of this torture, the ending, "It was a dream all along!" is the most sorry excuse of an ending. It means they didn't know how to end the story, that they had flaws in the plot that needed a quick, easy and lazy fix (no one but Pedro aged, for example, the confusing time jumps, the boring stories), and this crap of an ending invalidates the whole story. Even within the universe of the movie, what I just spend four hours watching didn't happen, because everything after the first five minutes of the movie was just a dream. It's not a plot twist, it's not smart, it's just another pointer of bad story telling. (spoiler's end)
So basically, it has a good picture, bad acting, bad story telling, and bad editing. I watched this movie only at the request and present of an aunt on her birthday, and I don't see how does anyone willingly go through this. This is, by miles, the worst movie I've ever watched.