Italian Poster:
Soviet Poster:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080101/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_I...ul_(1979_film)
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%96...C%D0%BC,_1980)
Introduction:
This is a joint Soviet-Italian co-production, filmed in Portugal in 1979, about the portuguese secret/political police (PIDE/DGS) set just before the 1974 Portuguese Revolution, that deposed the Fascist Regime. This film is not known in Portugal, due to strong geopolitical and diplomatic reasons.
This is also a very obscure and rare film, although it was directed by an elite Soviet Director, that became famous in Cannes and was awarded several film prizes, here is a picture of the guy, please note that some of those medals are artistic medals for his films and career, they are not only WW2 combat medals:
Modern Wikipedia articles (even from 2020) written in russian, will have a Wikipedia medals section. This feels culturally strange for me, but in russian language Wikipedia you can hover your mouse over each medal/award icon and a description will pop up, you can use Google Chrome browser's auto-translate feature to investigate Grigory Chukhrai's Cinema awards:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A7...B2%D0%B8%D1%87
I don't care much about medals, I just find this funny. But I do care about the other great films this guy directed, which I may comment later.
My goal will be to comment this obscure (but good and mature) film from a portuguese perspective, and also as a fan of soviet Cinema, for now I will share one of my three trailers, that were originally done for a portuguese audience.
A few notes:
a) The film is available for free, with english subtitles, on the official Mosfilm (the biggest russian Film studio of the Soviet Era) You Tube channel, but you should hold on and wait for me to explain and comment the film, on my following posts, in order to grasp what was the situation in Portugal, regarding the colonial war in Africa, the secret police, and what happened when an original european 1930's Fascist Regime, was allowed to exist and thrive well into the 1970's due to the WW2 neutrality.
b) The trailer above is my only "cute" one, the next two will be serious.
c) The private italian producer Quattro Cavalli Cinematografica provided those two famous movie stars, while the Soviet government would provide the money. The italians were also supposed to provided knowledge of Portugal, which the soviet crew lacked, because of the cold war, Fascist Portugal beeing a mortal enemy of Communist Russia untill 1974, and by 1979 falling under the political influence of the USA.
The italians failed... but Grigory Chukhrai managed to salvage the film.
Plot summary from russian wikipedia:
The action takes place in an unnamed country (in foreign annotations, Portugal is directly indicated during the Salazar era ), where a military junta rules, brutally suppressing any free thinking. Antonio Murillo, a former military pilot who was fired from the army for refusing to sink a ship with refugees, now drives a taxi, occasionally witnessing the arbitrariness of the authorities. His friend the waitress Maria is a member of the underground fighting against the dictatorship. Antonio, for all his dislike of the junta, is not interested in politics, his dream is to save money and become a pilot again by getting his own plane. But then one day he gave a ride to a man who turned out to be an oppositionist in his taxi, and came to the attention of the special services. As a result, because of the provocateur, he ends up in prison, where there are already several underground fighters, and is tortured.
Soviet Poster:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080101/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_I...ul_(1979_film)
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%96...C%D0%BC,_1980)
Introduction:
This is a joint Soviet-Italian co-production, filmed in Portugal in 1979, about the portuguese secret/political police (PIDE/DGS) set just before the 1974 Portuguese Revolution, that deposed the Fascist Regime. This film is not known in Portugal, due to strong geopolitical and diplomatic reasons.
This is also a very obscure and rare film, although it was directed by an elite Soviet Director, that became famous in Cannes and was awarded several film prizes, here is a picture of the guy, please note that some of those medals are artistic medals for his films and career, they are not only WW2 combat medals:
Modern Wikipedia articles (even from 2020) written in russian, will have a Wikipedia medals section. This feels culturally strange for me, but in russian language Wikipedia you can hover your mouse over each medal/award icon and a description will pop up, you can use Google Chrome browser's auto-translate feature to investigate Grigory Chukhrai's Cinema awards:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A7...B2%D0%B8%D1%87
I don't care much about medals, I just find this funny. But I do care about the other great films this guy directed, which I may comment later.
My goal will be to comment this obscure (but good and mature) film from a portuguese perspective, and also as a fan of soviet Cinema, for now I will share one of my three trailers, that were originally done for a portuguese audience.
A few notes:
a) The film is available for free, with english subtitles, on the official Mosfilm (the biggest russian Film studio of the Soviet Era) You Tube channel, but you should hold on and wait for me to explain and comment the film, on my following posts, in order to grasp what was the situation in Portugal, regarding the colonial war in Africa, the secret police, and what happened when an original european 1930's Fascist Regime, was allowed to exist and thrive well into the 1970's due to the WW2 neutrality.
b) The trailer above is my only "cute" one, the next two will be serious.
c) The private italian producer Quattro Cavalli Cinematografica provided those two famous movie stars, while the Soviet government would provide the money. The italians were also supposed to provided knowledge of Portugal, which the soviet crew lacked, because of the cold war, Fascist Portugal beeing a mortal enemy of Communist Russia untill 1974, and by 1979 falling under the political influence of the USA.
The italians failed... but Grigory Chukhrai managed to salvage the film.
Plot summary from russian wikipedia:
The action takes place in an unnamed country (in foreign annotations, Portugal is directly indicated during the Salazar era ), where a military junta rules, brutally suppressing any free thinking. Antonio Murillo, a former military pilot who was fired from the army for refusing to sink a ship with refugees, now drives a taxi, occasionally witnessing the arbitrariness of the authorities. His friend the waitress Maria is a member of the underground fighting against the dictatorship. Antonio, for all his dislike of the junta, is not interested in politics, his dream is to save money and become a pilot again by getting his own plane. But then one day he gave a ride to a man who turned out to be an oppositionist in his taxi, and came to the attention of the special services. As a result, because of the provocateur, he ends up in prison, where there are already several underground fighters, and is tortured.