Review of Alice

Alice (I) (2005)
8/10
Despair, in its most deeply and melancholic side
1 February 2007
"Alice" is a sad and deep movie about a missing child. Mário (Nuno Lopes) is a father of a little girl that is missing and since then his life is a complete routine… Each day he does every little step he had done the day she disappeared. He walks in the same streets at the same time, he catches the same train and sees the same persons, and he goes to the same places (including her school). He's in deep despair, and as he can't do anything else, he does that routine hoping she will pass again in one of these places one day… Beside that he mounted a "vigilance structure" with a large number of video-cameras installed in some friends' houses which record some of those streets (he also have friends at the airport and metro security who lend him some vigilance tapes). He's really convicted that someday she will appear in one of these cameras…

It's a very sad and touching movie, because it's about a matter that is always hard to "talk about". The plot is very simple in its structure, because it's very straight and easy to follow, but at the same time it also gives us a feeling of complexity, of something that it's not explained: We don't know, for example, who are these characters or how did Alice disappear.

The movie is a bit slow and melancholic, but it's just the way it should be to a story like that. The music, which is a very beautiful piano piece, helps a lot to this ambiance of melancholy and deep sadness; but also the footage, because all film is shot in a grey light, as if an enormous cloud had arrived over Lisbon…Very nice too, and totally connected to the ambiance of the story.

The character of Nuno Lopes (Mário) is also very well portrayed, because it has the typical figure of a person which is lost in life: Sadness in his eyes, unshaved face, defeated posture, always a serious expression… Excellent job done by Nuno Lopes and the production of this movie!
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