Lisboa (1999)
Lisboa (1999)
DVDRip | AVI | 704 x 532 | XviD @ 1497 Kbps | 92 min | 1,15 Gb
Audio: Spanish AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English hardcoded
Genre: Crime, Thriller
DVDRip | AVI | 704 x 532 | XviD @ 1497 Kbps | 92 min | 1,15 Gb
Audio: Spanish AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English hardcoded
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Joao (Sergi López), a traveling salesman working a route between Spain and his native Portugal, has a life changing experience when he meets Berta (Carmen Maura). Berta is a wealthy, middle aged woman whose car has broken down somewhere down the road. She has no wallet and has been walking for a long time without sleep or food. Without explaining why, she begs Joao for a ride to Lisbon. We know nothing of her background, but her desperation to get to Lisbon as soon as possible is palpable. Against his better judgment, Joao reluctantly agrees to give her a ride as far as a Portuguese border town.
Several times Joao tries to abandon Berta, but he finds he cannot leave her stranded. At one point, Berta passes out from hunger giving Joao an opportunity to go through her address book. He makes a call to let her son know that his mother seems ill and what stop on the highway he can meet them. As members of Berta's family arrive, the plot and motivations begin to unfold.
A supremely stylish, witty and enjoyable road-movie cum thriller in the Hitchcockian mould (spot the discreet allusion to North by Northwest). Portuguese travelling salesman López reluctantly gives a lift to the mysterious, maybe mad Maura in the middle of the Spanish desert; pretty soon he's trying to decide whether to walk away from her on-going battle with the dysfunctional family that's in hot pursuit, or to lend the clearly distressed woman his support. As the tone turns steadily darker, and a frighteningly unpleasant Luppi appears on the scene as Maura's tyrannical husband, Hernández packs in more than enough twists to sustain interest in his perfectly paced narrative, while the 'Scope camerawork and orchestral score lend the proceedings a real whiff of epic drama.
(click to enlarge)
Lisboa (1999)
