Several characters who are each at critical stages of their lives are strangely impelled towards an uncharted lake in the middle of the desert where they all have the opportunity to save each other.
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Reviews
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
I read some reviews about Backlight and some of them are really bad. Bad in a way that they aren't argued enough. I think that all the people should have an opinion but the opinions must have facts and things with meaning. That's why I think that I have a few things to say... First of all, Backlight is a fantastic movie and If you have some doubts about what I said, please, watch the movie again and try to understand it. Watch a movie is not just see what is in the screen, is see something through the screen! A message to the world. Cinema is an art that send messages in a single way. Through sound, image and, the most important, a story. The soundtrack of Backlight is amazing. Please, listen with attention. Santos e Pecadores, Nuno Maló... You don't know them? Well sometimes its good, because I know some "artists" and I would prefer don't know them. The movie don't have special effects like Transformers or War of the Worlds? Yes, its a fact! But I have a very good explanation for that: Money! Please remember that Fernando Fragata is Portuguese and don't have so many sponsors like Spielberg. He made the movie with some help but, essentially alone. Yes, alone... Can you imagine what is make a movie in these conditions? OK, we all have difficulties in life. I just wrote this for you understand that, like Fernando Fragata said "I didn't make the movies that I would like, but I did the movies that were possible to me". You want throw a stone for that? Please, be my guest, but remember that a movie is much more than that. Art is about passion, feelings. The story of Backlight is really good! The way that all the things fit until the final apotheosis is brilliant! The meaning in the objects are so amazing. Don't have a meaning but, the beauty is that somethings in life don't have a meaning. You just feel... You just listen some voices that are saying to you to go ahead. Also the GPS story is a true story of a women that died in a car crash and the husband took the gps and went the last address. The last address was a orphanage. The women was infertile and was thinking in adopt a child. All the story of Backlight is about real stories that Fernando saw. Is not an empty story with no meaning. Is something with a little magic (the magic in the objects) that make us to believe in things like that. You don't need a good camera or be in amazing places to make a good movie, you just need to have passion! A good Story! To make people forget their lives or, maybe, thinking in life and in human condition. OK, I like special effects and good monsters and wars but, first of all, I like a good Story! A meaning. If you are looking for some crap with famous actors, amazing effects, no meaning, poorly argued and an empty story like a cliché, please don't see this. See a Hollywood crap. Otherwise if you are looking for a good movie, with so many passion, meaning and a brilliant story, well, then you must see Backlight.
Backlight is one of the best films I've seen this year. There are various ways this film can be read and a number of messages implied from the various stories of the characters. What makes this film superb is how the path of each characters determines and influences the other character's lives. There are also solid performances although the are no big stars in the cast. It's an independent film but shot extremely well which makes it look rather mainstream like a high budget film. The script is also brilliant with nicely fleshed out characters and plots which intertwine neatly in the end to show how everything is related. By all honesty this movie is so inspiring that I was yanked back in my seat by emotion. It is a rare movie which made me think about the meaning of life and how we are all connected to each other. Most movies I've seen have no purpose or meaning of any kind. This had it all, plus cliffhangers that went on. Lucy' story is full of suspense and all the other stories mixed together are so emotional. Every single frame of the film is filled with a purpose. Each word and action accounted for some point later on. It is so pleasing finding a script that controls me and makes me look like an idiot in the face of perfection.
I pretty much agree with everything Yarso86 said, with the exception that I was bored by the film when it wasn't even halfway done.By far the scenes between the mother and daughter are the worst. The actress who plays the mom is completely over the top, with utterly absurd reactions to everything the daughter says, and the lousy script doesn't help either. Their story is also the worst, with a completely absurd and pointless plot device that makes absolutely no sense at all. It reminds me of something akin to a Goosebumps or some Nickelodeon TV episode.Also, there's some voice over work in the beginning of the movie that makes me think that the post-production was done in Portugal and they couldn't find an American English native speaker so they got a Portuguese who does a fake American accent that just deteriorates as he reads his lines, which get progressively worst, using expressions that no American would use.To top it all off, the best actor in the whole film, Joaquim de Almeida, an actual international actor with serious work under his belt with some of Hollywood's biggest stars, only gets half a dozen lines of dialogue in the whole thing, mostly talking to himself, although in retrospect that makes sense because he would pretty much shame any of the other actors in this film who tried to be in the same scene as him.Image wise,like Yarso said, some of the footage has that very clean HD look, which becomes very camcorder like in some scenes, seriously clashing with the beautiful (and often overused) slow-motion shots.I'm giving it a really low rating because I honestly believe that what's already on here is over-inflated out of a misplaced sense of national pride.Again, like Yarso said, the director does actually show some promise, but he really needs to back away from script writing.
I really don't like to write bad reviews, but I think people are being absolutely mislead by the marketing of this movie so I had to say something for the sake of objective truth.I do believe people are encouraging this movie and talking about it as a big accomplishment just because it was made by a Portuguese, not because they really liked it.There is no such think as an objectively good or bad film, and even though I thought this one was a hopelessly bad one, that's just my opinion; what I will tell you are some objective, indisputable facts and from there you can judge by yourself. For each fact, I'll add a small input on my opinion: The all plot is driven by extreme coincidences and never-explained supernatural events.There are no laziest plot devices than these. The abominable and too old "Deus ex Machina" is present in almost every step of the story. It makes you feel disconnected from it because everything is so unreal, so impossible, so not credible. You would buy it if it happened a couple of times, but no, it's all based on it and it happens over and over again. The story makes you loose the sense of causality. When you break all the rules of logic and plausibility, anything could happen next and suddenly you don't care anymore - you're not hooked, anxious to know what happens next, because you know a perfect solution will just pop out of the blue with no justification whatsoever.The dialogues are dreadfully unconvincing. No one in this planet would ever talk like these characters. They keep over-explaining everything so the audience can get the necessary details.Cinema is supposed to be about VISUAL storytelling, exposition of facts should never be achieved through narration if possible - and when you must use narration, you shouldn't disguise it as casual dialogue. It doesn't look casual. Al all.These characters have nothing to do with real people. They don't reflect human nature, they don't act nor react like humans would.They have no dimension, they are not credible at all. You won't believe in any of their emotions because they were really poorly constructed and overall poorly cast (example: if you want the teenage girl to be the stereotype of a bookworm, geeky, unsocial girl, who has trouble finding a boyfriend, you won't choose an absolutely stunning, "prom queen" blonde teenager to play it. No one will buy that). Thus you feel again completely disconnected from the drama. Which is the cause of the next topic: The film makes you feel embarrassed when you're supposed to be moved by it, because everything in it feels so appallingly melodramatic, filled with utterly exaggerated and ultimately fake emotional responses.In a nutshell: this movie is completely plot-driven and uses this as an excuse to be extremely lazy in the characterization. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that even the plot is unbelievably lazy.The locations were beautiful, but in some scenes it felt like the filmmaker said: "wow, this is a cool place, let's film a scene in here just because this is so cool" - plane scrap scene being the best example of this.The shots and the editing were good, but I thought the image was too sharp most of the time, which was distracting and un-cinematic, too clean and oversaturated, which made it look unrealistic for most of the scenes - some of these are limitations of shooting on HD, but some could be avoided.Soundtrack - pretty reasonable.I don't know the previous works of the director, but from this film I would say he has a good potential as a director, but not as a screenwriter.I tried to do a constructive review, I hate to talk trash and I have no pleasure in criticizing other people's hardwork. I actually incentivize and encourage Portuguese cinema to move forward, and this was probably the only reason that made me go and see this film.But I pay to see cinema and thus I want to see good cinema. I don't want to spend the time that I payed to be sitting on that chair feeling bored and embarrassed. And I won't excuse it when it happens just because it was made by a Portuguese. Why are we always so apologetic to ourselves? This is why we don't evolve.I didn't think this was good cinema and I was mislead by the public opinion who continues to talk marvels about this film. Is everyone blind? Why all this positive propaganda? I can't actually believe I'm the only one having this opinion.Good cinema starts with a good screenplay.This filmed was ruined by a dreadful, awful, screenplay.It's funny because in terms of structure, the screenplay is perfect - it obeys all the structure rules possible.But a screenplay is not just about structure and this one has nothing more to it.To Fernando Fragata, I think you have good potential, I admire you and how far you have reached, and I deeply encourage you to continue. I do. I will pay to see your next film. But please, don't cheat me. Please give me a good story. If you are a filmmaker, you can't be a lazy person - I'm sure you're not. But you gave me a very lazy story this time. Please don't do it again.Best regards.