Aniki-Bóbó

Manoel de Oliveira’s feature debut can be seen as a precursor to Italian neorealism – before it had even been invented. On the streets of Porto, along the banks of the Douro, the director follows a lively gang of children, moving between realist observation and a stylised vision of childhood imagination. The shy dreamer Carlitos and the fearless ringleader Eduardinho both vie for the attention of Teresinha, the only girl in the group. Hoping to prove his feelings, Carlitos gives her a doll she has longed for, obtained in circumstances that are not entirely above board. Tension between the boys steadily builds, and the outcome will be tragic.

The film sparked considerable controversy among Portugal’s morally vigilant public, living under the heavy hand of Salazar’s regime. Oliveira had, after all, clothed his child protagonists in adult emotions, stripped them of innocence, and allowed them to confront their problems without the presence of patriarchal authority. This subtle critique of political power condemned him to years of creative exile. Yet decades later he returned in a halo of glory, and João Bénard da Costa, the legendary head of the Cinemateca Portuguesa, declared with characteristic emphasis: “For me, the history of art – or the art of history – in Portugal over the last two centuries bears two names: Pessoa and Oliveira”.

Agnieszka Szeffel, João Ricardo Oliveira

Kinooceany. Portuguese Film Week

Manoel de Oliveira (1908–2015) – Portugese director and screenwriter born in Porto. He made his debut with a city symphony in the spirit of Walter Ruttmann, dedicated to his home town: Douro, Faina Fluvial (Labour on the Douro River, 1931). At various points in his early life he was also an actor – appearing, among other films, in one of Portugal’s earliest sound features, A Canção de Lisboa (1933) – a racing driver, winning competitions in Portugal and Spain, and a photographer. In 1942, once again in Porto, he made his first feature film, the neorealist Aniki-Bóbó. Until the 1970s, as an opponent of António Salazar’s Estado Novo, Oliveira was unable to realise his artistic vision freely.

After decades of interrupted and irregular work, Oliveira found a second youth in his seventies and began working at a remarkable pace, directing at least one film a year. The 1980s brought some of his most important and radical works: Francisca, which began his long association with the writing of Agustina Bessa-Luís and became an unexpected box-office success; the French films Mon Cas and The Satin Slipper, a seven-hour colossus based on Claudel, both of which explore the nature of theatre and literature and the relationship between modernity and classicism; and finally the entirely sung operatic film The Cannibals. At the end of the decade came No, or the Vain Glory of Command, a reinterpretation of Portuguese history through the lens of its military defeats. Another major success followed with his adaptation of Agustina Bessa-Luís’s novel Abraham’s Valley (1993).

Manoel de Oliveira received an honorary doctorate from the University of Algarve and was honoured many times at major film festivals, including Venice and Cannes. In 2008, he received an honorary Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement. He died at the age of 107.

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