The movie
Mal Viver (Previously Unreleased)
Follows five women who fight for the stability of a hotel they inherited, living an \"old and irresolvable conflict,\" with many conversations that have been postponed and much that remains to be said within a family.
Length: 127 min
Country: France,, Portugal
Language spoken: Portugese
Language subtitles: Dutch
Cast: Anabela Moreira, Rita Blanco, Madalena Almeida,Cleia Almeida, Vera Barreto,
Nuno Lopes
Director: João Canijo
Release date: 01/09/2024
Description
Winner Silver Bear at Berlinale 2024 and official submission of Portugal for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 96th Academy Awards in 2024.
Five women are running an old hotel, trying to save it from inexorable decay. A long-standing, perhaps irreparable, conflict weighs down on them: they are mothers who are unable to love their daughters, who in turn are unable to be mothers. When the young Salomé arrives at the hotel, old wounds are reopened. Caught between resentment and the search for a way out, her mother, Piedade, makes a drastic decision. João Canijo constructs a space that seems to absorb the characters’ states of mind. Like a Strindberg play or a Rivette film, dark images and twilight colours reflect the ritual nature of gestures and the complexity of relationships. What are we and what do we become when the past looms and the present seems to offer no way out? Canijo does not provide one answer but instead multiplies the points of view, creating a structure that takes into account the different interpretations of time and space, and the human beings who pass through them.
Five women are running an old hotel, trying to save it from inexorable decay. A long-standing, perhaps irreparable, conflict weighs down on them: they are mothers who are unable to love their daughters, who in turn are unable to be mothers. When the young Salomé arrives at the hotel, old wounds are reopened. Caught between resentment and the search for a way out, her mother, Piedade, makes a drastic decision. João Canijo constructs a space that seems to absorb the characters’ states of mind. Like a Strindberg play or a Rivette film, dark images and twilight colours reflect the ritual nature of gestures and the complexity of relationships. What are we and what do we become when the past looms and the present seems to offer no way out? Canijo does not provide one answer but instead multiplies the points of view, creating a structure that takes into account the different interpretations of time and space, and the human beings who pass through them.
