A Song of Lisbon

Another unnecessary and pointless remake by Leonel Vieira: this time, there are some interesting points to consider, but it still has too many problems to be a good film.

It is clear that Leonel Vieira has absolutely adhered to the fashion for remakes of very old, but well-known films. It's a trend that emanates from Hollywood and that has a certain relevance there, given the huge amount of films and stories forgotten in films that only experts in the field will still review. In Portugal, a country with a cinema that is considerably poorer in old and forgotten films, making remakes is not so attractive. There would be some films that could be suitable for a remake, a rewrite or an update. I am thinking, for example, of “O Feitiço do Império”, a film that publicized governmental ideas and which was so ostracized that there is no complete copy today. I wouldn't be shocked if Vieira took what still exists and made a different story, in the final years of the Portuguese presence in Overseas Provinces, giving us a politically neutral film, with an interesting story about the people who, in the 50s and 60s, went to work there, the soldiers who went to fight, the relationship between Portuguese newcomers and African natives, that is, about a heterogeneous group of people who, in different ways, lived through the years when that “spell”, that idea of a country spread across three continents, was shattered. That would be a good remake.

What Leonel Vieira has done with this film is not an interesting or necessary remake. It is very similar to what he did in “O Pátio das Cantigas” with one caveat: he seems to have learned from the mistakes made in that film: he did not make a film so insipid, so focused on flirting and intrigue, and tried to respect more the original material. He didn't make a copy, he updated the story, inserted new things and grafted a handful of scenes that, indeed, he copied on carbon paper from the original film (Vasco's final exam and his wedding are the most evident, even the dialogues are the same). There are, however, some debatable options here: transforming the character Alice into a young woman who is Portuguese but was raised in Brazil by her mother and returned to Portugal at the “request” of a father she hates is confusing, unnecessary and far-fetched. It's just an attempt to turn the film into a cultural melting pot similar to “Pátio das Cantigas”, where we even saw Indians “Bollywood dancing”! It is true that we receive more and more immigrants and that our language is hardly heard on our streets, but this is not a thing that I would glorify as something really good, not least because most of them come to work almost like slaves in tasks that we, the "Mr. Doctors", tend to despise. Our conscience is then relieved by giving them what they consider good wages but, for us, are changes.

César Mourão was a good bet to give life to Vasco. He's still young enough for the role and has some musical skills that the character requires, but which are ridiculously neglected in this film, which gives a kick to fado at the expense of a set of guitar silly songs. Alright, that would be worse if the remake was from the movie “Fado: História de uma Cantadeira”, which fortunately does not. The Brazilian actress Luana Martau, well known by those who follow what is done in the lands of Vera Cruz, was also a good choice and gave the character a certain strength and energy that the young Beatriz Costa did not bring to the character (although the actress has got a really huge, strong personality, as everyone who knew her personally knows). Marcus Majella was a positive addition as well. I liked São José Lapa and Maria Vieira, but I think turning their characters into a decadent lesbian couple was an error and disrespects the source material. I understand the desire to wink at the “gay” public, but everything has its place. Furthermore, I also didn't like Miguel Guilherme. The actor is good, he is perfectly capable, but Vieira instructed him in a way that completely erased the character. Comparing him to António Silva, in the oldest film, is like comparing a dwarf to a giant. Inserting a political subplot was also a wrong idea, and one that seems too far-fetched to be credible.