Recordações da Casa Amarela (1989)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

João César Monteiro

Writer:

João César Monteiro (written by)

Release Date:

12 October 1989 (Portugal)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot Keywords:

Psychiatry | Sanitarium | Boarding House | Fetish | Rape

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

João César Monteiro	...	João de Deus
Manuela de Freitas	...	Dona Violeta
Ruy Furtado	...	Senhor Armando
Teresa Calado	...	Menina Julieta
Duarte de Almeida	...	Ferdinando
António Terrinha	...	Doctor
Violeta Sarzedas	...	Neighbor in Living Room
Madalena Lua	...	Maid
João Pedro Bénard	...	Dairy Clerk
Sabina Sacchi	...	Mimi
Inês de Medeiros	...	Mimi's Voice (voice)
Manuel Gomes	...	Laurindo
Maria Ângela de Oliveira	...	Madre de Deus
Maria da Luz Fernandes	...	Neighbor with Baby
Vasco Sequeira	...	Taverner

Also Known As:

Recollections of the Yellow House
Recordações da Casa Amarela: Uma Comédia Lusitana
Uma Comédia Lusitana

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

Portugal

Language:

Portuguese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Portugal:M/16

Filming Locations:

Lisbon, Portugal

Company:

Invicta Filmes

Movie Connections:

Followed by As Bodas de Deus (1999)

Portuguese idiosyncrasy

This is a strikingly original piece of work. Both in its overall tone and in how it portrays (what I would call) a certain sickening "malaise" of our age's urban solitary Man.

This is where the João de Deus character (almost his alter-ego) first shows up in Monteiro's "oeuvre". Yes, it can be said that this film depicts some of Man's most shamingly unconfessed little dirty everyday sleaziness. But it does so in a hauntingly poetic way: there's somewhat of (what might be called) "aesthetics of all things disgusting" to it, which would reach its peak in Monteiro's own A BACIA DE J.W.

João de Deus undergoes some sordid humiliation and proceeds to enact or abide by the politics of slimy (but classy and literate) seduction. It's the "classy" and "literate" factors that prevent this film from being annoyingly disgusting (it's not "what" you do but "how" you do it)

There's also the lust of decadence as he's comfortably numbed into an ever materially and psychologically degrading state, starting from when he has to flee the flat he was paying for after a uniquely poetic and shy seduction/rape scene.

It's quite possibly the best Portuguese film I've seen. And there's much of the proverbial Portuguese dreaming and poetic melancholy (even sadness) tone in that there's shootings of the narrow typical Lisbon streets and recreations of some (not so typical) fate-ridden scenes (fate means "fado") so closely and frequently attached to the Portuguese.