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Often with stories of the empire building and world navigation centuries of the European nations, we forget the mundane, human details - the fears, expectations, longings and stubborn plans - and concentrate on the grandiose projects.
Manoel de Oliveira's The Fifth Empire - Yesterday as Today is the story, which eventually became a legend, of the young Portuguese king Sebatsian, who was believed to have died in battle while in Morocco, and who would miraculously reappear (according to the legend) to save Portugal in her darkest hour.
De Oliveira's film is pure dialogue. The young king has returned from his North African expidition and wants to set out again, and debates this with his advisers. It is set in the sumptuous palace, and with supernatural moments. It reminds me of Jacques Rivette's two-part film of Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle) which also had very little action but much dialogue (often tortured self-examination) and some beautiful scenery and backgrounds. Another film, by my favorite French director, Eric Rohmer (and a little out of character for him), is about Parsifal from the legend of King Arthur. Rohmer's film, Perceval le Gallois, is of similar austerity as Oliveira's The Fifth Empire and Rivette's Jeanne.
Rohmer, though, has a great talent of bringing out the pettiness and insecurities from his characters, but always with the sympathetic eye of a wiser, older grandfather who still sees the strengths behind these weaknesses.
In their own way, Rohmer and de Oliveira mock their heroes a little, who seem beset by their youth and uncertainty. Even Rivette's Joan is full of unquiet moments of doubt, which she often needs to overcome. Very grand legends become very humble humans in the hands of these great filmmakers.
Here are excerpts from Perceval le Gallois by Rivette.
