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Journey to the Beginning of the World

Play trailer Journey to the Beginning of the World 1997 1h 35m Biography Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
67% Tomatometer 6 Reviews 77% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings
Manoel (Marcello Mastroianni), an aging film director, takes a road trip across Portugal with his actors, Afonso (Jean-Yves Gautier), Judite (Leonor Silveira) and Duarte (Diogo Doria). Along the way, he points out various spots of personal importance. However, the trip is really for the benefit of Afonso, who is part-Portuguese, and who feels compelled to visit his aunt Maria (Isabel de Castro) in a remote village. But bonding will be tough, since Maria is skeptical of outsiders.

Critics Reviews

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Jeffrey M. Anderson Combustible Celluloid 05/26/2006
A lovely look at memories, the past, and endings. It's slightly talky, but beautifully autumnal, oddly relaxing and very moving. Go to Full Review
Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com 06/11/2005
4/5
Scott Von Doviak Film Threat 09/26/2001
A motivational speech disguised as a travelogue - a cross-country Chicken Soup for the Soul Go to Full Review
Rachel Sanders Apollo Guide 09/24/2001
70/100
Peter Henne Film Journal International 01/01/2000
An unrushed journey, a loose summing up but not a dreary final testament, through a director's history, conducted by the filmmaker himself. Go to Full Review
Harvey S. Karten Compuserve 01/01/2000
6/10
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Audience Reviews

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06/24/2013 Hillarious movie about the memories, to which the Road movie Aesthetics gives even more beauty. It's genuine when even in real life old man rememebers his childhood, and in cinema it's even more genuine if This man is Marcello Mastroaianni , and he does such thing in such beutiful way like it's here, during stoping at various places from his past and especially at Outside the Hotel . It's very much like Ceylans "Once upon a time in Anatolia" but , in "Anatolia" melancholic style of memory retelling drives characters to Change lives, while here memories stay as they were and don't make much difference to present lives of heores. On the other hand here we also face the arrival to the roots , Like Afonso does when he arrives to his fathers village to Portugal to meet his aunt and also it's another clash of memories to reality, this time memories of Afonso's father. The best detail in this film I think was statue of pedro macau, man with huge log on his shoulders, and in my opinion it defines life, shows that anyone on the planet is Pedro Macau his own, and all of us has to carry such heavy load and no one can help us, it's ourselves and only ourselves who can deal with the difficulties of our lives, and the memories itself, which can be good or bad, are the part of that heavy load too. Beautiful , relaxing and thoughtful movie which I think is one of the most underrrated films I have ever seen. For me it's one of the best of 90's. See more 08/26/2011 Fascinant rà (C)cit des origines et de cinà (C)ma. See more 09/05/2010 Almost painfully simple in construction but with depth beyond comprehension. Apparently the most interesting thing about film director Manoel de Oliveira is his age (Yes, he's 101 and named the oldest working film director). When people remember this great director for his age, his films seem to get forgotten. Journey to the Beginning of the World is a film that feel like it could only have come from a person who has spent (at the time it was made) almost a century on this earth. Veteran actor Marcello Mastroianni plays the director Manoel in a journey across Portugal as the director recalls his childhood and french actor Afonso searches for the small country town where his father grew up and the aunt he's never met still lives. A poetic musing on nostalgia, fading childhoods memories and lost heritage. Words can't quite do the films subtle majestic power any justice at all. See more 10/02/2009 Good film, especially notable for being Mastroianni's last film. Oliveira succeeds with this one. See more 02/23/2009 the last Mastroianni's appearance in a film before his death, and what an honnour it should have been for Manoel de Oliveira, and even the other way around. two masters of the cinema, working together, for the first and last time. Oliveira has a very reflective style in directing his films for what i've noticed. they're very slow paced, the lines are indirect and somehow poetic, and sometimes the characters speak to themselves and even for the camera. This Voyage isn't a masterpiece, its more like a life thought. See more Read all reviews
Journey to the Beginning of the World

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Movie Info

Synopsis Manoel (Marcello Mastroianni), an aging film director, takes a road trip across Portugal with his actors, Afonso (Jean-Yves Gautier), Judite (Leonor Silveira) and Duarte (Diogo Doria). Along the way, he points out various spots of personal importance. However, the trip is really for the benefit of Afonso, who is part-Portuguese, and who feels compelled to visit his aunt Maria (Isabel de Castro) in a remote village. But bonding will be tough, since Maria is skeptical of outsiders.
Director
Manoel de Oliveira
Producer
Paulo Branco
Screenwriter
Manoel de Oliveira, Jacques Parsi
Distributor
Strand Releasing
Genre
Biography, Drama
Original Language
Portuguese
Release Date (Theaters)
Oct 6, 1997, Original
Release Date (DVD)
Apr 18, 2000
Box Office (Gross USA)
$24.6K
Runtime
1h 35m
Sound Mix
Stereo
Aspect Ratio
35mm