Cinema
Sunday Afternoon
Domingo à Tarde
António de Macedo · 1966
Synopsis
Jorge heads the haematology department of a Lisbon hospital, which takes in little but terminally ill patients, and where he works with an assistant, Lúcia. One day Clarisse arrives, whom he diagnoses with an already advanced leukaemia. He falls in love with her and tries, for the first time in his career, to save someone.
Context
The film is drawn from Fernando Namora's novel published in 1961; the director wrote the screenplay, edited it and designed all of its sound, and used colour in only two scenes. The adaptation provoked debate: Eduardo Prado Coelho reproached the filmmaker with having drawn from a text that calls for life his own obsessions, death, the sacred, sacrilege, and Namora replied that fidelity, in a recreation, cannot have the rigidity attributed to it. Steeped in German philosophy and resistant to the slogans of the French avant-garde, the film had serious troubles with the censors before opening at the Império cinema, in Lisbon, on 13 April 1966.
Who it is for
Black and white feature film, in Portuguese, of about an hour and a half; death and anxiety are its substance.
Prizes and reception
Diploma of merit at Venice in 1965, Plateia prizes for direction and for both performers in 1966, and one of the founding films of the New Portuguese Cinema.
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