English
One of the most exciting things to be happening at the moment in European cinema just might be Mysteries of Lisbon, the latest film from France-based Chilean director Raúl Ruiz, who carries the weight of being for many, the most important, influencial Chilean director of all time.
The novelist, screenwriter, cinema director, and chess player, (amonst other things) Fernando Arrabal (Founder of the Panic Group, along with Alejandro Jodorowsky, and French painter and actor Roland Topor) once declared that the cinema of Ruiz could be labelled as “cinema for the blind.”
He was taught to watch films as a blind person. They would go to the cinema each week during the period he spent living in Italy. It was this blind person who taught him that The Apartment by Billy Wilder was a better film than The Process by Orson Welles, because the former had demonstrated a better sense of architectural and spacial oppression, using the same technique of showing the ceilings in shot.
The knowledge, sensitivity, and intuition of this blind person totally convinced Arrabal that the only cinema which was worth making, was that for blind people – and with that intention, he has made his extraordianary – all be it few – films. The name of this blind person who had been such a mentor for the filmmaker, was in fact, ??Jorge Luis Borges – in case you wondering.
Perhaps it couldn´t be said for certain that the surreal style cinema of Raúl Ruiz is a kind of cinema for blind people – but at one point, the critics at the prestigious cinema magazine Cahiers du Cinéma have referred to it as one-eyed cinema, in the sense that it offers us its images from a twisted perspective, which uses a whole range of different angles and prisms, making it implausible (a bit like the style of Welles), and unnatural. This has meant that – as one would indeed hope – he has not become a popularist, or “easy” filmmaker – as proved by the fact that he decided to put his own stamp on an adaptation of Proust´s Time Regained, whilst also retaining the trademark seductive, impressive Proustian style.
The boldness of Mysteries of Lisbon, based on the celebrated novel by Camilo Castelo Branco is in the way it tells a series of multiple different stories, which cross and connect in order to recount the history of Lisbon in the 19th century. Four and a half hours long, the melodrama is all based around ordinary daily events and activities. The idea of conscience, and also the treatment of time are key characteristics of Ruiz´ cinema – executed with success in this, his latest film, which has been constructed in the style of a soap opera, with a narrative rhythm which is gentle, yet persistent.
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Paul Oilzum
After you´ve seen it, it will be almost impossible to resist the temptation to rent Lisbon accommodation and lose yourself in the mysterious city.
Translated by: Poppy
