Comédia de Deus, A
Portugal / France / Italy,
1995, 163 min
Shown in 1996
CREDITS
- dir
-
João César Monteiro
- prod
-
Joaquim Pinto
- scr
-
João César Monteiro
- cam
-
Mario Barroso
- editor
-
Carla Bagalheiro
- cast
-
Max Monteiro, Claudio Teixeira, Raquel Ascensao, Manuela da Freitas
- source
-
Gemini Productions, 73, rue Saint Denis, 75001 Paris, France. FAX: 33-1-42-33-12-13
- premiere
-
North American Premiere
OTHER
Dryly comic, disturbing and deservedly honored with Venice’s Silver Lion, God’s Comedy is one of the most flagrantly perverse films you’re ever likely to see. Its protagonist manages the Paradise Ice Cream Parlor, where he concocts exquisite flavors. At home he delights in poring over his treasured “Book Thoughts,” an album in which he keeps his collection of female pubic hairs. Refusing to compromise even with his admirers, Monteiro’s made a film that may at first appear long-winded and self-indulgent—although it contains several unforgettable sequences so brazenly original that they take your breath away. Afterward, however, you realize that cutting even an instant of this lucid, intransigent film would be like wanting to remove the mole from the face of a loved one. Never has the cinema dared to depict obsessiveness so unblinkingly and with such contained irony. And its no accident that the principal role is played (as in his brilliant Recollections of the Yellow House) by the filmmaker himself, certainly cinema’s most cadaverous leading man since Murnau cast Max Schreck as Nosferatu (a resemblance Monteiro alludes to more than once). Nor is it merely coincidence that Monteiro’s character is named João de Deus (John of God), a legendary holy man of Portugal who is remembered both for his madness and for having committed acts of overwhelming charity.
—Peter Scarlet
FACTOID #49
Some of the filmmakers whose works screened in our New Directors series include Cinda Firestone, Susan Sontag, Shu Shuen, Conrad Rooks, Shirley Clarke, Sandro Franchina, and Mitsuo Yanagimachi. This series, which began in 1965, was a predecessor to the New Directors series at Lincoln Center, which started in 1971.
