Jornal da Mostra
Nº 344 > 28ª Mostra > 28/07/2005
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Manoel de Oliveira gets ready to release Magic Mirror
The veteran Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira has recently finished the production of the film Magic Mirror, the 38th film of his carrier. The long feature film is based on “The Soul of the Rich”, second chapter from the trilogy from the author Augustina Bessa-Luís, which started with The Uncertainty Principle, also adapted for the big screen by Oliveira in 2002.Magic Mirror is about a man that, after leaving the prison, starts working for a rich woman who greatest desire is to have a vision of the Virgin Mary – her intention is to question her. Due to his mistress desire, the ex-con, son of the house governess, begins to have contact with a world, until then unknown to him, with all the extension and depth of deliriums, flaws and despairs that are part of the rich people’s soul.
According to Oliveira, the production will take to the screen a vision about Portugal and the state of the world’s ideals. Or, as Augustina has written in the romance: “the Portugal with no ideas, just eccentricities. The Oedipus relationship with the rulers world, the abstinence sense known by the people, not to interfere, not to give opinions, until the day they strike the enemy with singular determination.”
Alfreda, the character who desires to live the ethereal moment, lives a life ruled by the obsession. The facts of her everyday life – even though apparently disconnected – are the result of the psychic condition of the soul of a rich person, social class which she and her husband belong to.
Ricardo Trepa (grandson of the filmmaker), Leonor Baldaque, Leonor Silveira, Isabel Ruth are in the cast. Lima Duarte, who has worked with Oliveira in Word and Utopia (24th Mostra), is the Brazilian special guest in Magic Mirror. The world premier is scheduled for September in the Venice Film Festival.
