Visit, or Memories and Confessions (Manoel de Oliveira, 1982)
It’s hard to say exactly what Visit, or Memories and Confessions (Oliveira 1982) is about. A house, a family, a filmmaker, or a marriage are all fine answers, but they fail to capture the feeling of the film. Shot in 1982, it was only screened after Oliveira’s death in 2015. Oliveira presumably thought he was near death at the time, but he would go on to live another 33 years. We receive a tour, of sorts, of the house he and his wife were living in at the time. At times, Oliveira addresses us directly, sitting at his desk and looking toward the camera. At others, his body is nowhere in sight, but his voiceover follows us as the camera tracks down empty hallways or lingers on a photo. Occasionally, Oliveira is silent, letting the shots speak for themselves.
At once, this is a home video, an essay film, and a ghost story. It appears as though the house has been uninhabited for a long time, as though Oliveira and his wife simply vanished one day. Yet both husband and wife appear throughout the film. Watching it, I feel as though a spectral presence lurks behind every corner. The camera lets us see Oliveira’s past life long after he shot the film, and the film he made will persist long after his death. It captures a snapshot of the house in a certain moment, a house which surely does not exist in the same state today.
In the film, as his debts increase, Oliveira is preparing to leave the house which he has lived in for four decades. It as much an elegy for the house and his memories in it, as for himself. Oliveira tells us of his trouble with the military dictatorship. He shows us films that he loves. He takes us to a nearby factory, now derelict, which his father had started and managed. Yet the sadness of the film is gentle, wistful even. Change, in and of itself, is not inherently bad.
Yet, after finishing the film and leaving the theater, I am not sure what to think. Perhaps I would understand the film better if I had seen any of Oliveira’s other films. Perhaps I failed to pay the film sufficient attention, allowing myself to drift off among its gentle images. Or perhaps, in this film as in life, there are no grand narratives—no easy answers. It’s a film I would like to see again but may never get a chance to given the niche appeal of it. The echoes of its empty hallways, though, slowly fading and warping in my memory, just might be enough.
Author Biography
Adam Reece is a senior at Hendrix College majoring in English-Literary Studies. He recently received the “Kenneth Story Best Senior Thesis Award” for his work on Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener, and will be graduating with distinction.
Mentor Biography
Kristi McKim is an Associate Professor of English and Chair of Film Studies at Hendrix College, where she was awarded the Charles S. and Lucile Esmon Shivley Odyssey Professorship, honored as the 2014-15 United Methodist Exemplary Professor, and nominated for the CASE U.S. Professors of the Year Award. Her publications include the books Love in the Time of Cinema (2011) and Cinema as Weather: Stylistic Screens and Atmospheric Change (2013), in addition to pieces in Camera Obscura, Studies in French Cinema, Senses of Cinema, Film International, The Cine-Files, and Film-Philosophy.
Department Overview
Hendrix College offers a major in English with an emphasis in Film Studies and a minor in Film Studies. This growing program within an intimate and rigorous liberal arts college environment includes a variety of courses in the history and theory of film and media, alongside co-curricular experiences (such as this trip to the New York Film Festival) generously made possible through the Hendrix-Odyssey Program. Extracurricular film-related groups include Hendrix Film Society and Hendrix Filmmakers.
Film Details
Visit, or Memories and Confessions (1982)
Portugal
Directed by Manoel de Oliveira
Runtime 73 minutes
Follow this link to read the introduction to this set of reviews: https://www.filmmattersmagazine.com/2016/05/21/2015-new-york-film-festival-introduction/
