Abraham's Valley
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Cécile Sanz de Alba, Leonor Silveira, Luís Lima Barreto, Luís Miguel Cintra, Ruy de CarvalhoBrand: Vanguard
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 187 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-12-24
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Vanguard Cinema
Product features:
- Ema is a sweet, beautiful and innocent girl who turns the head of every man she passes. Her life takes a turn for the worse when her father forces her into a passionless marriage to a wealthy doctor. To make matters worse she is relocated to the scenic but unfamiliar vineyards of Abraham s Valley, Portugal. She scorns her new husband and threatens to kill herself rather than submit to his desires.
Movie Reviews of Abraham's Valley
Movie Review: See the film, don't buy the Vanguard DVD....
Summary: 4 Stars
This is another other wordly, serene, austere, meditative work by Portugal's greatest filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira. It's a loose update of the Madame Bovary story by Flaubert, and it's an immensely sad, tragic, beautiful, and haunting film, one of de Olveira's most interesting and fascinating films. It has some of the greatest photography in Manoel's work (the shots of the valley are breathtaking). It has wonderful, pointed narration. It is somewhat reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (something mentioned by another reviewer here), both in photography, tone, narration, and pace. The dialogue here is more intellectual and thought provoking than in Lyndon. It is a typical dense, multi layered work by de Olveira, and it's one of his best films. Despite the pace of the film being slow, it flies by quite considerably. De Oliveira's films are endlessly fascinating to me. This film reminds me of his film The Fifth Empire-Yesterday as Today, and how it's very talky (intellectual talky), and many of the camera shots are static, yet, it's absolutely fascinating and both films really fly by despite their lengthy running times (Abraham's Valley is 203 minutes, The Fifth Empire-Yesterday as Today is 127 minutes) and languid pacing.
The Vanguard DVD here is not a good transfer. Avoid it. I saw this film at a retrospective of de Oliveira's work at BAM Rose Cinemas, and it was the full length version, projected at 1.85:1, and in Portuguese with English subtitles. The DVD is 1.33:1, the image is distorted, it's not the full length version, and it's dubbed into French, so it should be avoided at all costs.
I would normally give the film 5 stars, but it gets four here because of the poor quality DVD.
Summary of Abraham's Valley
ABRAHAM'S VALLEY - DVD Movie