安吉里卡奇遇

Thanatological obsession comes aptly for a centenarian filmmaker-in-action (inconceivable but miracles happen), Portugal’s national treasure Manoel de Oliveira was 101 years young when he shot THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA, his penultimate feature, he would pass away in 2015, aged 106.

Set in an unspecified modern age (no cellphone or computer on show, the story goes that de Oliveira germinates the script almost six decades earlier, in the 1940s, which can well account for the film’s overall démodé tone), Sephardic photographer Isaac (Trêpa, a bland, even anemic leading man), lodging in a town near Porto, is hired to take some photographs of a young lady Angelica (de Ayala), who has just deceased and lies beatifically on her deathbed with an impeccable smile.

Seen through his viewfinder, Angelica comes alive right in front of his eyes and smiles to him, even only for a split second, first startled, then bewitched (after A second visitation occurs after the photos are developed and hung on a line to dry), Isaac has an out-of-body experience with in his dream (de Oliveira and CGI technology make strange bedfellows). Henceforth, he becomes perversely retiring, glassy-eyed, refusing food intake (save the morning coffee), perpetually wallows in his own woolgathering and is deemed weird by the lodging’s other tenants and the over-hospitable landlady Justina (Teixeira), even his Luddite disposition (“old-fashioned ways interest me”), which de Oliveira initially makes heavy weather of, fizzles out while Isaac returns frequently to Angelica’s family. But what is he looking for, perchance even himself has no clue (all he gets is some glimpses of the family photo book). Exclaiming “Angelica” like a Cotard-inflicted walking dead, Isaac’s death-seeking, spirit-consummating wish never reaches an empathetic plane for audience to project our compassion, it is arrhythmic, unthinking and self-defeating.

Having said that, THE STRANGE CASE…. is not entirely a misfire, de Oliveira still flourishes with his painterly instinct, divine compositions and chromatic understatement. Whether steeped in Chopin’s plinking virtuosity or basking in laborers’ collective, monotonous marching songs, we should only feel blessed and inspired by de Oliveira’s age-and-agism-defying quiddity, film is his Angelica and now they are finally and eternally indivisible in empyrean.

referential entries: de Oliveira’s VOYAGE TO THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD (1997, 7.0/10); João Pedro Rodrigues’ THE ORNITHOLOGIST (2016, 6.5/10).

不得不承认，这个电影封面深深的吸引了我。看的时候吓了一跳，原来是个死去的美女。一个已经离开此世的理想物，深深寄托着彼岸世界的奇迹，那不是别的东西，正是基督教渴望的天堂。

从摄影师Isaac第1次到富翁家里看到的影像就知道了，那是一只白鸽，它代表圣灵。艾萨克要被转化了。很多人都抱怨剧情无意义的拖沓，其实他们不能把这部电影当成一个三开光的圣像画。

不是吗？主角愿意为了真和美，发疯死亡。我们想起了中国的聊斋，故事那里的男主角，为了自己死去的小阿娇，也可以奉献任何东西。古今中外有一种彼世的理想，这是共通的。

这种追逐不为普通人所理解。比如艾萨克要去拍摄传统的锄地，女房东就不太理解。他不能理解，简单而真挚的爱。那是梭罗式的爱，就是早上迎着阳光在湖中沐浴。沐浴在葡萄牙式的天主教阳光中。

到了电影的最后那一刻，你也会觉得，我们自己的账号被取消了。