The Forest (2002)

Touches You

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Expected more

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

I've seen A Selva. It's a Portuguese/Spanish/Brazilian production, with a Portuguese director. Good actors from Brazilian ranking, such as Maitê Proença, Claudio Marzo, Roberto Bonfim, Gracindo Júnior, Chico Díaz, José Dumont, and others, all highlighted by former careers on TV and in the movies. But their talents are spoiled, as if we could say they (the talents) were "pearls given to the pigs". The film is too schematic, too academic, too "square", like all TV Globo "videonovel" productions. The magnificent scenery is worthy to see. But the performances are all too much "correct",with no heart-giving, no delivery to the characters. The Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado (is he a relative to "our" excellent Brazilian actress Camila Morgado? if so, he has some things to learn with her...) works on a schematic line, without "incorporating" his dubious and ambiguous character, a monarchist dandy who exiles himself in the Rain Forest, running from Portugal after a revolution won by the republican branch of political society. There are much better things going on on movie screens countrywide. If you doubt me, go and see it. But don't complain I didn't warn you!

The purpose of Leonel Vieira in the making of this movie was NOT to show the world that there is another type of Portuguese cinema - he made the type of movie he knows how to. And if that was good for cash boxes and awards in Portugal and abroad, so much the better! The purpose of Leonel Veieira was also not to prove to the Portuguese public that Portuguese actors can act. He would have chosen someone other than Diogo Morgado if that was the case. Morgado hangs himself together next to the likes of bigger-than-life Maitê Proença, and in the wild setting that the movie provides, one can nearly forget about his bad acting. The purpose of Leonel Vieira was also not to simply adapt The Jungle, a novel which has been translated into every imaginable language and delighting readers over generations, being one of the first world-best-sellers in history.Leonel Vieira, I am convinced, wanted to do the same thing that every movie director wants: he wanted to tell us a story. And a story he told. A creepy, violent, despairing, overwhelming story of the life in the Amazon in a lawless period, in a period where men were not worth their shoes, if they had any. So, the question is not whether Diogo Morgado was good or not in the movie(surrounded by so many high-calibre starts, who cares, really...?); the question is: was the movie any good. Oh!, yes, it was! The photography is undoubtedly the best that has been done in Portugal. The script is the antithesis of typical Portuguese cinema (slow and melancholic) - although with hints of it! The opening traveling scene reminded me of Kubrik's 'The Shining'. And then there are scenes of outrageous shock. I challenge you all to watch the movie, for the story's sake. Watch it and forget about silly critical biases. What you want to do is to be thrown in the violence of the amazon. And that has totally been achieved. If it wasn't for Morgado, I'd give it a 9!

They tried, for the very first time, to do a movie, a portuguese movie, that finally knows how to use the amount of money it has on his shoulders. They tried, for the very first time to make a movie that manages to take people to the theaters and not make them think it's another portuguese movie. But Leonel Vieira already has been trying to do this with his previous features. So have they succeeded? Almost. The movie is the greatest technical achievement in portuguese cinema. For the very first time we have a film in Panavision, and for the very first time with a real symphonic score. It is a pity, then, that they chose such a weak actor to play the main role. Diogo Morgado tries, but he has too few lines and not a sign of character depth. The supporting characters are way better. Anyway, I hope that Leonel Vieira continues developing this taste for movies made for the audience... i sure wanna make them that way someday...

This is the first Leonel Vieira movie I see, so my expectations were based on what I knew of his previous work - which was that he directed two of the most famous recent mainstream movies in Portugal - A BOMBA and ZONA J. I also knew that this was the biggest portuguese production ever.In fact, the production was very good and care was taken to make this an american standart-quality work. Also, for the first time, one gets to see convincing acting, which is something to praise on a portuguese movie. Ironically, the main character, which is one of the few portuguese actors, displays the worst and least convincing acting in the set. The distance from Diogo Morgado to the brazilian diva Maitê Proença (the woman to which he falls in love) is immense. This flaw, however, is well hidden in the nature of his character and on the reduced speech it has.All in all, considering the huge difficulties surrounding the making of this motion picture (starting with it being filmed in Amazonia), I would say that it pretty much managed to pull itself together. Aside from the acting of Diogo Morgado and some minor storyline weaknesses (but then again, I haven't read the novel on which the movie was based), it has a well polished production quality and direction steadiness that surpasses by far most of what is made in Portugal. Too bad, though, that the cast is presented in spanish.