A Talking Picture
  • Release Date: Dec 10, 2004
User Score
5.7 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 10 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 10
  3. Negative: 4 out of 10

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  1. [Anonymous]
    Feb 27, 2005
    3
    I recommend reading Ken Fox's review. This film dispenses with any real narrative or character revelation. It's more a series of extended lectures, with a travelogue wrapped around them. The central, long dinner scene combining the three belles dames with Malkovitch is embarrassingly foolish -- like enduring a long dinner with your weird uncle. It's wonderful that de Oliveira is still directing in his 90s. But too many critics have gushed over this particular film, reading in inspiration and mastery that just aren't there. Critics similarly gushed over David Lynch and minimalists like Tarkovsky, for the same reason: they interpreted absence of technique as a magisterial renunciation of technique. Sometimes a flat, uninspired, plotless film is just that. The final twist's exact development will give you something to think about, though. Its implicit symbolism suggests a knowing swipe at America's self-defeating foreign policy and declining world image.… Expand
  2. DanC.
    Jan 29, 2006
    0
    Horrible, pretentious, art-house fare. And this from a viewer who likes (good) art house movies and foreign films! This film reminds me of bad free jazz - comprehensible only to those who play (or direct) it, alienating to and dismissive of the audience, self-consciously "serious" without having a shred of entertainment or passion to it. I hated this film, all the more so becuase the premise has so much potential. But the terrible, stilted dialogue with John Malkovich and his three international ladies is at once excruciating, embarrassing, and boring. This is the kind of European film that is funded entirely by the government, makes no impact, has nothing to say, and represents the vanity of the director and little else. Zero stars.… Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
75 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 14
  3. Negative: 0 out of 14
  1. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    80
    Initially this seems naive and archaic, but it conceals a Buñuelian stinger in its tail.
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  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Deborah Young
    70
    A film destined to divide Manoel de Oliveira's fans but also to win him new ones, A Talking Picture is his simplest, most linear story in memory.
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  3. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Dennis Lim
    70
    Still astonishingly vital at 96, the Portuguese maestro Manoel de Oliveira here takes a becalmed trip through stormy waters.
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