Customer Reviews

Magic Mirror - Espelho Magico (Manoel De Oliveira)

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I admire Manoel de Oliveira deeply and without reservation. He's an amazing filmmaker. Many have made hay of his age (he is 100 now and still working), including me, but the fact that he is making great films (as opposed to a filmmaker who is just keeping busy in some lame attempt to stay "relevant" and not create great art) is why I admire him as I do. I met him at a retrospective of his work in 2008, and while his English was poor (but it was better than my non-existent Portuguese), we communicated in a short but meaningful way. Out of all his works (I have seen anything I could by him, and there's still a ton to see), Magic Mirror is my favorite film of his.

This was part of a 2 film retrospective (for lack of a better term) at the Anthology Film Archives in NYC of recent works by Manoel de Oliveira (the other film was The Fifth Empire-Yesterday as Today). This is the better of the two films. T his one has one of the more surreal plots of any de Oliveira film, and one that could give Luis Bunuel a run for his money (in fact, de Oliveira's follow up film to this one was a homage/sequel to Belle de Jour called Belle Toujours). It concerns itself with a rich woman (played by Leonor Silveira, a mainstay in Manoel's films) who has a strong desire to witness the Virgin Mary. She is depressed that poor people get to see these visions, and that her life remains empty despite her vast wealth and charity. 2 con men (one of whom has been just released from jail and the other is trying to go "clean", but doesn't seem to be trying too hard) devise a scheme to milk her out of some money and hire a local girl to portray the Virgin Mary for her. The plot here is actually quite funny, and this is one of de Oliveira's most surreal, touching, and beguiling films. The performances are all first rate, and the film has a wonderful, languid pacing to it (like most of Manoel's films). There is even a strange, dreamlike scene that takes "place" in Venice. It looks like a projection mistake when I first saw it, but then realised it was supposed to look like that, it made a sort of unique sense. I was rather disappointed at the crowds for these films (there was only 10 people in the audience for Magic Mirror, only 6 for The Fifth Empire), but I stayed for the duration of both films. I'm glad I'm did. Manoel's work just flies by because of the incredibly subtle rhythms of his films. I don't know how he does it, but he does. Much of Manoel's work is not on DVD, but if you get a chance to see any of his work, please do. If you get a chance to see Magic Mirror, jump at it...