Aniki-Bóbó

The feature debut of Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira returns to the screen, beautifully restored, as a charming, proto-neorealist revelation.

Young Carlitos’s heart beats a little faster for Terezinha; so does Eduardo’s. Terezinha, for her part, has eyes mainly for a doll in the window display of a shop, the latter of which has the tantalising and lightly ominous name Temptations. Hoping to win his crush’s admiration, Carlitos swipes the doll for her – and, in doing so, introduces a new tension and moral murkiness into the lives of this gang of Porto urchins.

Working from a short story by José Joaquim Rodrigues de Freitas, Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira (The Strange Case of Angelica, MIFF 2010) anticipated the eruption of neorealism in Italy several years later by choosing to use nonprofessional actors and shoot on location in his home city. But while its greatness is now recognised, Aniki-Bóbó was largely dismissed in its day, and de Oliveira – the only filmmaker whose career stretched from the silent to the digital era, and one who remarkably continued directing beyond his 100th birthday – would not make another feature-length film for 21 years. In its spareness, the auteur’s first fiction film is an edifying counterpoint to his later, lavishly stylised works, and enchanting in its own right.

Content: Melbourne International Film Festival