AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Andrew Sidhom (Roonil_Wazlib_97) In the face of fate, a difficult situation, a heavy blow, a lack of identity, or an identity at the mercy of revelations coming to light at fatalistic moments... the characters of Mysteries of Lisbon constantly seek to assert themselves, reinvent themselves, forge an identity. Padre Denis's father goes to priesthood after his loved one dies in childbirth. She had gone on the run with him in light of being an uncared-for wife. Padre Denis, being a bastard child, assumes a number of personas through the years. Joao, similarly, seeks an identity, at first by looking for his parents, then as a young adult by declaring himself the protector of the girl he falls in love with. The latter declares that sad events in her past have made her the nasty person that she is (which Joao, in his crush, cannot see). Joao's mother Angela goes from an unhappy marriage... to her son but in poverty... to the convent. Knife-Eater goes from a man with a heavy conscience to a noble nouveau-riche.In the end, Joao, confused by being a pawn in fate's and other people's dictates tries to leave without a trace, to either check out of life in a way or to reinvent himself somewhere far away. But his benefactors know how to find him. And he cannot turn his back on the past completely; he writes his story, not forgetting where he comes from. A fitting conclusion to a film also in part about storytelling. After hours of listening to people telling their stories, he finally decides to tell his.

teatag There are two ways to view a film. One is to accept and endorse the conventional wisdom about the film, and to endorse it because "they" must be right. The other is to judge the film on its merits. "Mysteries of Lisbon" has the following "merits": a simple-minded plot, glacier-like plot development, insipid dialog, wooden acting, murky cinematography, and half-baked attempts to inject surrealist touches (as if these could redeem the film's other failings). I went along with the gag for quite a while before ejecting disc 1 of "Mysteries of Lisbon" and finding something better to do -- which was easy, in the circumstances.

justbeach This is the most stupid film I've ever seen.Photography, costumes and scenery are beautiful, but the story is utterly pointless! Not to mention that it is one slow and extremely boring film, with plenty of illogical and senseless details and scenes.The characters are also not well developed, we find out about their destinies but there is no point in all that, none of the sub-stories has a conclusion.I don't understand who would have payed for the making of this (probably rather expensive) film and what is its target audience?

timmy_501 When Raoul Ruiz adapts existing material, he tends to reconfigure the narrative in a playful way, often obliterating all coherence in the process. In his writings on film, specifically Poetics of Cinema, he is quite critical of what he calls central conflict theory. The idea behind this theory is that narrative, especially film narrative, must be built around a single conflict and that every aspect of the plot must build on this conflict one way or another. Ruiz noticed this phenomenon and gave it a name, but it was so common that popular screen writing guides used it as an incontrovertible rule. Poetics of Cinema is devoted almost entirely to explaining and criticizing central conflict theory. Ruiz was never content merely to criticize this simplistic yet ubiquitous narrative structure in writing, however; commentary on it is often embedded in the films he makes. Unsurprisingly, his films intentionally eschew anything resembling this structure but they tend to go even further and offer playful deconstructions of the concept. Although I can't claim much familiarity with the novel Ruiz is adapting in Mysteries of Lisbon (it apparently hasn't been translated to English yet) it undoubtedly lends itself especially well to his ludic, subversive style. Rather than follow the conflict of a single continuous narrative, Mysteries of Lisbon explores several interrelated narrative strands that complement one another unusually well as they're full of cases of important coincidental relationships and frustrated love affairs. Thus, Ruiz has less to subvert and more to emphasize. Ruiz's visual style has always been highly unusual. He favors the frequent use of Dutch angles and he often creates startling juxtapositions with his unusual framing techniques and occasional superimpositions. While these unusual techniques are always welcome, they can become somewhat exhausting when they occur frequently. Since Mysteries of Lisbon is unusually long (the version I watched was around 260 minutes) it's perhaps unsurprising that Ruiz manages to space these out carefully enough to draw attention to all the right places and break up the monotony of the more conventional period piece style he favors in this film. Even at its least inspired, however, Mysteries of Lisbon offers far more visual stimulation than the stuffy fidelity of a film by Merchant and Ivory or Oscar fodder such as The King's Speech. Unlike most directors working with similar material, Ruiz captures vast landscapes and baroque interiors with the same effortless mastery. Even the frequent long takes are made more interesting by carefully employed tracking shots. Mysteries of Lisbon represents the rare combination of a director at the top of his game working with material perfectly suited for his unique sensibilities. Cinema doesn't get much better than this.