Cheap The Convent (DVD) (Manoel de Oliveira) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Convent

Of God, Goethe and Gomez Addams
My local video store had this filed under "French Films." Turns out that, despite starring Catherine Deneuve, it's actually a later film by esteemed Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira. I don't think the store even had a Portuguese section, so it may be just as well. The movie is certainly "international." It's in English, Portuguese and French--and jibberish.

It may be a shame that my first exposure to this reputable director's work is this bit of arty nonsense. The guy was 86 when he made this film and he may not have been in his prime. But, yikes!, I see he's 95 and still kicking and has turned out NINE films since. Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best. At times O CONVENTO (to use the Portuguese title and why not? I'm entitled to a little pretension too) seems like a take-off on pretentious art films. The scenes of the guided tour of the monastic chapels are a hoot. These and other moments approach the camp of Paul Morrissey's ANDY WARHOL'S DRACULA or ANDY WARHOL'S FRANKENSTEIN. In fact, come to think of it Heloisa Miranda's Berta character bears an uncanny resemblance to Pat Ast.

Malkovich and Deneuve probably thought they were signing on to a prestige project. After all, the script is rife with references to Shakespeare, Goethe and Nietzsche. And all these proclamations about the nature of good and evil, etc. They would have done better to stay at home and READ Shakespeare, Goethe and Nietzsche. So would the viewer.

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this movie doesn't deserve ANY stars
I do love a good art film, but man, this one missed the mark, the ball park and any point it might be trying to make. The music was insanely bad, storytelling missing entirely (oh yeah, there is no story), the lighting was atrocious and absolutely nothing interesting happens. The characters are flat, completely unsubstantial and entirely confusing. They spend a lot of time reading Faust OUT LOUD, so if you don't know it intimately, and know if it is relevent to this self-gratifying piece of pretentious nonsense, don't bother. The only bright spot? Catherine Deneuve looks lovely as usual.

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Philosophical Movie
"O Convento" is a very strange movie, but is a enchanted movie also. Let-me try to explain this. If you don't like philosophy keep distance of this movie, but if you like some philosophical concepts from Nitzche, (specifically Zarathustra) you need to take this. It is not just another "just to fun movie", instead of this, is a movie that make you think about the evil and the goodness.
And, last but not least, you get a movie with Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich but pay attention in a very impressive performance of Luis Miguel and the beauty Leonor Silveira that compose Piedade with delicate. Luiz Miguel and Leonor Silveira outperform Malkovich and Deneuve.

The only major problem: The sound isn't very good and some takes aren't good illuminated.