Recollections of the Yellow House

Joao Cesar Monteiro's 1989 film is about a middle-aged man living in a cheap boarding house in Lisbon. Monteiro plays him himself. The character is poor, ill, and both sardonic and aggressive toward everyone around him; the film neither defends nor condemns him. The telling is deliberately uncomfortable. His attention to the landlady's daughter, his fixation on his own body and the repeated scenes of humiliation leave the viewer without a position to occupy. Monteiro is constructing his image here as the most contrary figure in Portuguese cinema, and he continues this character in later films. The visual language rests on static shots and dark interiors. The humour is arid; most of the jokes are built to make you flinch rather than laugh. The film won the Silver Lion at Venice in 1989. Who it's for: viewers open to the extremes of European cinema who can tolerate an unpleasant narrator. Who it's not for: anyone who does not want to watch implied sexual harassment and scenes of degradation; the film puts these at its centre and keeps no distance.