Lisbon Story (1994)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Wim Wenders

Writer:

Wim Wenders (writer)

Release Date:

12 May 1995 (Portugal)

Genre:

Drama | Music

Plot:

The director Friedrich Monroe has trouble with finishing a silent b&w movie about Lisbon. He calls his friend...

Plot Keywords:

Sound | Lisbon Portugal | Filmmaker | Urination | Children

Cast

Rüdiger Vogler	...	Phillip Winter
Patrick Bauchau	...	Friedrich Monroe
Vasco Sequeira	...	Truck Driver
Canto e Castro	...	Barber
Viriato Jose da Silva	...	Shoemaker
João Canijo	...	Crook
Ricardo Colares	...	Ricardo
Joel Cunha Ferreira	...	Zé
Sofia Bénard da Costa	...	Sofia
Vera Cunha Rocha	...	Vera
Elisabete Cunha Rocha	...	Beta
Teresa Salgueiro	...	Herself (Madredeus)
Pedro Ayres Magalhães	...	Himself (Madredeus)
Rodrigo Leão	...	Himself (Madredeus)
Gabriel Gomes	...	Himself (Madredeus)

Also Known As:

Lisbonne Story
Viagem a Lisboa (Portugal)

MPAA:

Rated PG for some language and brief smoking.

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

Germany | Portugal

Language:

English | Portuguese | German

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:PG | Finland:K-16 | Germany:6 (f) (w) | Portugal:M/12 | Spain:T | Sweden:Btl | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Frankfurt/Main, Hesse, Germany

Company:

Madragoa Filmes

Trivia:

Originally intended to be a pure promotional documentary about Lisbon comissioned by the city. Director Wim Wenders added some fictional components to the film and created a story with a thin and simple plot line.

Quotes:

Phillip Winter: Listen. You have to guess what this is.
[makes sound of horse running]
Beta: A horse! He's afraid!
Zé: Yeah, horse!
Vera: That's it!
Sofia: He's running very fast! He's galloping!
Phillip Winter: Right. And who is always on a horse?
Zé: A cowboy.
Phillip Winter: Right. And now...
[makes sound of lighting a match]
[...]

Movie Connections:

References Chelovek s kino-apparatom (1929)

Soundtrack:

BALANCE

Tribute to cinema in sight and sound

Wenders has shot a visual gem with rich sound and music, whose story-line and entire raison-d'etre is a tribute to film-making itself. Every frame is composed, dramatic, and the complementary colour theme of blue-yellow-red (predominantly sky blue) is adhered to so closely, it's phenemonal and delectable.

Waiting for the supposed main character Friedrich, played by Patrick Bauchau, to show up in the film, eventually becomes a metaphor for those times in life when one waits for the "main event", and it's a long time coming. Life is what happens while we're waiting for life to begin.

Rudiger Vogler's Phillip gets to deliver a wonderful lecture to all pretentious artists everywhere who've lost their way, and to art film-makers like Friedrich, especially. We're so happy to hear him dressing down Freidrich, and doing so more articulately than we could have done, it gives this fairly slow-moving film a wonderful sense of resolution and direction.

A very human film about the ordinary, the magic in the ordinary, and the ability of film to convey that magic. Loved it.