Estátuas de Lisboa Review: Just some old statues, and I kind of loved it

If you have ten minutes and want to feel like you are standing in Portugal ninety years ago, this is worth a look. It is perfect for history geeks who love old cities, but if you need a plot or even a single line of dialogue, you will absolutely hate it.

Honestly, it is exactly what the title says. It is just a bunch of statues in Lisbon.

A very young Manoel de Oliveira just walked around his city with a camera and filmed some stone monuments. It is simple, a bit shaky, and incredibly peaceful.

There is this one shot where the camera tilts up a big stone figure and you can see a tiny bird nesting right on the guy's nose. 🐦 I love small, accidental details like that.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Estátuas de Lisboa (1932) through its definitive frames.

It makes the cold stone feel kind of alive, even if the editing is a bit clunky in places. The shadow of the camera operator even peeks into the corner of the screen for a split second.

Unlike dramatic silent films from around this time, like Down Home or the spooky vibes of Terrible pesadilla, there is zero story here. It is just pure atmosphere.

Some of the shots look a bit dusty, and the bright afternoon sun makes one of the statues look like it has a weird, dark mustache. But that is the charm of these old reels.

A few random things I noticed:

• The water in the fountains looks incredibly thick, almost like white paint because of the old film quality.
• People in the background wearing giant hats who clearly did not know they were being recorded.
• A very abrupt cut near the end that feels like the camera simply ran out of film.

Its definitely not some big masterpiece, and nobody is going to write a giant essay about it. If you want a real story with characters, you should probably find something like The Man Who Found Himself instead.

But for a quiet, dusty window into the past? This little film does the trick just fine.