O Cinema, Manoel de Oliveira e Eu (2016)

Seen at the Viennale 2016: I adore Manoel de Oliveira. He was always, all the past years present at the Viennale. And of his last two decades of filmmaking I have seen nearly everything. João Botelho is an admirer, too. And because he is an excellent filmmaker I went for this documentary/movie. In the first half Botelho shows some snippets of Oliveira's movies that he liked most. The second half is a b/w-silent movie by Bothelo based on one idea (The Girl with the Gloves) of Oliveira. Oliveira never had the time to make a movie out of it. And so Bothelo gave it a try. One of the actresses of this silent movie is the wonderful Mariana Dias, who acted a lot for Oliveira. To carry this out as a silent movie is clearly a reference to the beginning of Oliveiras's work in the late 1920's. A bit disappointing that Bothelo could not come close to Oliveira's cinematic clarity of story telling.