Labor on the Douro River

1931 [PORTUGUESE]

Action / Documentary

10
IMDb Rating 7.2/10 10 813 813

Plot summary

Short silent documentary from 1931 about those working on the River Douro in Oporto.

Director

Manoel de Oliveira Photo
Manoel de Oliveira

Top cast

720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
157.56 MB
968*720
Portuguese 2.0
NR
Subtitles pt  
23.976 fps
12 hr 20 min
Seeds ...
306.13 MB
1440*1072
Portuguese 2.0
NR
Subtitles pt  
23.976 fps
12 hr 20 min
Seeds 4

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by sibisi73

The story of a working town.

Oliveira's first film, shot around the harbour in Oporto, Portugal, is an avant-garde series of images of the fishermen and assorted workers of the town. Although there are obvious influences from other 'art' films of the time, it isn't simply a montage of unrelated images, but a vision of a working town, even with so much as a narrative thread running through. The version I have seen (at the London Film Festival 2001) was overseen by the director himself with a new score by Emmanuel Nunes. It is a pounding, vibrant 18 minutes, despite it's limitations.
Reviewed by Horst_In_Translation 4 / 10

Rare Portuguese silent film

"Douro, Faina Fluvial" or "Working/Labor on the Douro River" is a Portuguese black-and-white documentary from 1931, so this one will soon have its 90th anniversary and this was the first of oh so many filmmaking efforts by director Manoel de Oliveira, who was in his early 20s still at that point and yeah well he died not too long ago at an ancient age way into his 100s and the fact that he made films already when hitler was not even in power in Germany makes it obvious how long he's been in the industry. I would say that for a rookie filmmaker this was okay all in all, but in general I still give it a thumbs-down. It seems artistic occasionally, but as a whole, it is not better than some documentary movies from 10 or even 20 years earlier and also way inferior to the animated films from the 1930s, even if that is mostly because of how great animation was back then, not that this film here was bad or anything. What else can I say about it. Don't be confused by soundtracks added later on, this is a silent film. It may be interesting to the grandchildren and their grandchildren to see some of the people in this movie here and honestly sometimes they seemed so happy which was nice to see in my opinion. Overall, the impression aspect without a story, without a plot, without us knowing anything about those in front of the camera, is just not strong enough. this film gets a thumbs-down from me. Not recommended.
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