No, or the Vain Glory of Command

At the end of the colonial war, a group of soldiers advances through the jungle. Among them is Ensign Cabrita, a history graduate who embarks on a journey through other memories. From Viriato and the resistance against Roman rule to the inevitable African debacle, Manoel de Oliveira reflects on Portugal’s greatest military disasters. João Bénard da Costa wrote one of the most poignant and insightful analyses of the film: “In other words, is this film about us (and not only made by us) unbearably precise because it presents our history as one of doom and darkness? Because it seems to condemn us to an eternal return, without beginning or end, trapped in a straight line within a vast and terrible circle, a great and terrifying cycle? Non is a harrowing film. Its immense, hallucinatory beauty overwhelms precisely because of its excess and delirious intensity.

Duration: 110’
Production year: 1990
Country: PT, ES, FR
Language: PT, ES, IT, DE Subtitles: EN

01:34

Manoel de Oliveira

Manoel de Oliveira was born in 1908, in Porto. He took an interest in cinema from a young age, and his first work as a director was the short film Douro, Faina Fluvial (1931), inspired by the urban symphonies of the time, such as Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927). The film was admired internationally but largely disliked in Portugal. The same happened with his first feature film, directed eleven years later, Aniki Bobó. Oliveira only returned to the director’s chair in 1956, with the short film O Pintor e a Cidade. In 1963, he directed Rite of Spring and, a year later, The Hunt, films for which he started to gain more consideration nationally and internationally. In that same year, the Locarno Film Festival programmed the first retrospective of his work until then. From the 70s onward, he started directing more frequently and established himself as one of the most important directors in European cinema. Films like Benilde or the Virgin Mother (1975), Doomed Love (1978), Francisca (1981), The Satin Slipper (1985), No, or the Vain Glory of Command (1990), Abraham’s Valley (1993), The Convent (1995) and Voyage to the Beginning of the World (1997) were regularly premiered at several film festival throughout the world, like Cannes, Venice, Locarno and Tokyo, where they won several awards. He died in 2015, at 106 years old. His significant longevity allowed him to construct a rich and diverse oeuvre, where reflections about the nature of cinema and its relation with what it represents are a recurring trait. In 1988, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Sant’Iago da Espada Military Order and, in 2014, he was decorated with the rank of Grand Officier de la Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur. In 2008, the Cannes Film Festival recognized his oeuvre by awarding him the Palme d’Or in a Lifetime Achievement Award Ceremony.

Original title: Non, ou a Vã Glória de Mandar

Manoel de Oliveira

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