A Song of Lisbon

Another unnecessary and pointless remake by Leonel Vieira: this time, there are some interesting points to consider, but it still has too many problems to be a good film.

It is clear that Leonel Vieira has absolutely adhered to the fashion for remakes of very old, but well-known films. It's a trend that emanates from Hollywood and that has a certain relevance there, given the huge amount of films and stories forgotten in films that only experts in the field will still review. In Portugal, a country with a cinema that is considerably poorer in old and forgotten films, making remakes is not so attractive. There would be some films that could be suitable for a remake, a rewrite or an update. I am thinking, for example, of “O Feitiço do Império”, a film that publicized governmental ideas and which was so ostracized that there is no complete copy today. I wouldn't be shocked if Vieira took what still exists and made a different story, in the final years of the Portuguese presence in Overseas Provinces, giving us a politically neutral film, with an interesting story about the people who, in the 50s and 60s, went to work there, the soldiers who went to fight, the relationship between Portuguese newcomers and African natives, that is, about a heterogeneous group of people who, in different ways, lived through the years when that “spell”, that idea of a country spread across three continents, was shattered. That would be a good remake.

What Leonel Vieira has done with this film is not an interesting or necessary remake. It is very similar to what he did in “O Pátio das Cantigas” with one caveat: he seems to have learned from the mistakes made in that film: he did not make a film so insipid, so focused on flirting and intrigue, and tried to respect more the original material. He didn't make a copy, he updated the story, inserted new things and grafted a handful of scenes that, indeed, he copied on carbon paper from the original film (Vasco's final exam and his weddi...