PAINÉIS DE SÃO VICENTE DE FORA

VISÃO POÉTICA

27/30

Manoel de Oliveira brings us a brief poetic vision of the six tableaux of São Vicente de Fora by Nuno Gonçalves exhibited in the National Museum of Antique Art.

The theatricalization of a descriptive text about the symbolical and historical meanings is shown allied to a pictorial cinematography in order to visually express the intrinsic content of these paintings within a symbolical vision.  

The warm strong colors of the stills and the proportional composition can be seen as a cinematographic duplicate of these tableaux within a translative movement of the actors, that is, a realistic vision as it could be seen in the theatre through the actors' movement, in and out of the scene.

Painéis de São Vicente de Fora - uma visão poética, could be described as a short documentary on these same paintings, trying to induce the viewer, however, in a charade, through the existence of a low light punctuating the scenes with sharp shadows and lines, which allied to the insistent close-ups of the faces painted in the tableaux reveal a sense of mystery about old history tales.

This interesting inversion on cinematography by giving relief to the faces inscribed in the paintings, shooting their live duplicates from a further perspective, denotes a decomposition of the image that takes the viewer to a closer view merely filled with a voice in the background which dictates their story.  

07:09:2010