In search of lost comedy – Daily News – Lisbon

“Soft drinks and Love Songs” is more a comedy of proposal of Portuguese cinema – halfway between social caricature and a certain romantic appeal <. / b>

in Portuguese cinema remains a nostalgic wound that is expressed through a mirage that some define as “artistic”, others treat as “commercial”. Namely, it would be necessary to rediscover the magic of the most famous comedies of the years 30/40 to rediscover a legendary original purity. We can discuss the relevance of such nostalgia (some of these films are downright rudimentary) and to its historical illusions (found in this area, several ostentatious failure ticket). Anyway, you can say that Soft drinks and Love Songs (opens tomorrow), directed by Luis Galvao Teles from an argument Nuno Markl, born this nostalgia.

After all, there is a difference from the recent trilogy formed by the Courtyard of the Cantigas, the Lion Star and the Song of Lisbon (self-proclaimed the “new classics” ). Then they glued up commonplaces of more rotinado television humor, even dispensing with the construction of any relevant relationship with the logical narratives of the original. Now, in Soft drinks and Love Songs looking a burlesque tone that integrates social caricature and an avowed romantic anachronism.

One is left with the feeling that the results less correspond to a coherent project and more a collage of “numbers” that were not subject to a real work of narrative unification. The portrait of the protagonist Lucas (Ivo Canelas), author of music to soft drink ads, will even ranging from a simple collection of anecdotes and hopping between “gender” (comedy, melodrama, farce or so surreal …) starting for making inglorious efforts of some actors, eventually compromising the final consistency of the project.

there seems to be an attempt to make up for all this by integrating some personalities of the musical domain, ironically or not, they are more close to the status of “star” than any of the cast members. Here too, the inadequacies prevail: Jorge Palma is to register yourself in “dream” whose narrative relevance is unclear; Sérgio Godinho is not even minimally defined character; Finally, the briefest appearance of David Carreira not even enough to be self-parodic.

Probably the source, Soft drinks and Love Songs was aimed at the intersection of two great classical headquarters comedy: on the one hand, the hard-hitting social portrait in which even the slightest signs refer us to a situation of life in which we recognize ourselves; on the other hand Delusion rooted in realistic components of the picture, but opening up to more or less fey or absurd domains. Unfortunately, the fragility of the results leaves the feeling that lacked time or imagination to achieve such creative heights.