Dario Oliveira

Comments

Zabriskie Point

Extraordinary conjunction of Antonioni's artistic inspiration with a confluence of ideas and political relevance.

The photography, the freedom in screenplay and the direction of actors, the violence of American society, at that particular moment in history, the best rock bands on the soundtrack, the approach toward experimental cinema – everything in this film is inspiring and a unique journey in time.

Paris, Texas

With this film, Wenders made me a follower of his work. Wit the best team behind the camera –  Sam Shepard, Robby Muller and Ry Cooder – and directing an almost perfect team of actors, he tells a story of love, memory and the passage of time in a new way that made me believe more and more in cinema, at a time when I was growing up and the cinemas of my town, Porto, were slowing beginning to empty out and close down.

Verdes Anos

Paulo Rocha made the definitive film of his generation here, along with his perfect actress, Isabel Ruth, and unforgettable original music by Carlos Paredes, launching the "Cinema Novo" New Wave. It is a powerful portrait of our lives as working-class people, which remained the same for ages in a changeless Portugal under the Salazar regime; even today, having seen his first film again and again, I always feel the same sadness for the generations before mine, lost under dictatorship, my entire family, until the 25 of April 1974, the day of our democratic revolution. The modernism of the Lisbon buildings, the romance between the two young lovers, the class struggle of the cities, where everything was grey and immutable, everything so clear and certain, made a great film – a beautiful collective portrait of our past present.

The Last Picture Show

The melancholic story of this group of kids about to say goodbye to their teenage years, and to the end of the places where they met and were happy and which from that moment on will be nothing, the black-and-white echoing dead, touched me and my small group of close friends deeply. We also lived in a ghost town, Vila do conde in the early 80s, like Anarene in the 50s in the film, and were stioll dreaming with an America that we knew from records, books and films, believing in cinema as a religion to follow in order to become free to feel, to learn how to think, to act and forget our own sad childhoods in Portugal under the dictatorship. The beauty of Bogdanovich's masterpiece will stay with me as one of the best moments in film history.