Silvestre
Directed by César Monteiro.
With Maria de Madeiros, Teresa Madruga, Luís Miguel Cintra
Portugal 1981, 35mm, color, 118 min. Portuguese with English subtitles
A bewitching combinatory adaptation of the Bluebeard tale and a 15th century Portuguese fable of a damsel who disguises herself as a knight errant, Silvestre is both radically feminist and fascinated with the dark, primal logic of the paternal order. Monteiro’s earliest collaboration with producer Paulo Branco was among his first to receive international acclaim, with special attention given to Silvestre’s daring use of deliberate artifice – front-projected backgrounds, extended freeze frames, theatrical performances – to capture the fatalistic rhythm and dream logic of myth.
Harvard Film Archive
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
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Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
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