DOURO, FAINA FLUVIAL
DOURO, TRAVAIL FLUVIAL
Manoel de Oliveira
Portugal, 1931 (1994 version), 35mm, 18’
Original version : no dialogue
Photography : António Mendes
Music : Emmanuel Nunes
Followed by:
PORTO DA MINHA INFÂNCIA
PORTO DE MON ENFANCE
Manoel de Oliveira
France, Portugal, 2001, Colour, 35mm, Stereo, 61’
Original version : portuguese
Script : Manoel de Oliveira
Photography : Emmanuel Machuel
Editing : Valérie Loiseleux
Sound : Philippe Morel, Jean-François Auger
Casting : Ricardo Trêpa, Jorge Trépa, Maria de Medeiros
Production : Paulo Branco
In 1931 a young dandy from the Porto bourgeoisie, who was a pole vaulting champion, a participant in car races, enthusiast for circus and a movie buff (he dreamed of being an actor) became an unlikely cinema talent, carried away by the speed of the vanguards of this new and fascinating art. His father bought him a camera. Self-taught, with the help of his friend, photographer António Mendes, he began to film the life and activities of those who inhabited both banks of the Douro River, fishermen, boats, work: 18 minutes of pure instinct and daring, an exercise both admirable and technical. The result? The symphony of a city, no less important and certainly more humanized than the film lineage of its influences. On 19 September 1931, Douro, Faina Fluvial was presented in Lisbon and booed, to the amazement of some foreign guests, including Pirandello, who asked if Portugal was accustomed to applauding with the feet… There are three versions of this first magnificent film that Oliveira loved so much. The last, restored and slightly re-edited by the director himself in 1995, with a new score by Emmanuel Nunes, is the one presented by the FID. This is a hungry film, and there are so few! Commissioned by Porto 2011 – European Capital of Culture and shot 70 years after Douro, Porto da Minha Infância has an obviously autobiographical connotation. It is a city and a port at the same time. Oliveira’s Porto, the port of his childhood. He leads us by the hand, by the voiceover (and that of his wife, Maria Isabel), and through his appearances. He welcomes us into his refuge. An oracle warns us: “remembering moments of a distant past is to travel outside time.” However, Porto da Minha Infância is only the film of that time, that “once upon a time there was…” that has become “There is”, because in the movies it is always the present that counts. If cinema gives what life takes, here is the story of stolen time regained. (FF)
