On the (Fantastic) Strangeness of the Cinema Produced by Manuel Luiz Vieira on Madeira Island in the 1920s

Abstract

O Fauno das Montanhas (The Faun of the Mountains) is considered one of the first fantastic Portuguese films. Directed by Manuel Luiz Vieira (1926-1927), it aroused some perplexity since its debut.
In 1925, Vieira established the Empreza Cinegráfica Atlântida, where he experimented a new cinema genre: A Calúnia (The Calumny) (1926) was his first fictional film, followed by O Fauno das Montanhas and A Indigestão (The Indigestion), in 1927. Nonetheless, in May 1927, the island cinephiles were surprised by the strangeness of O Fauno das Montanhas, that has not been properly understood. The same surprise was felt by the few authors who has published on this film since then: why and how did an insular filmmaker directed and produced such a film in Madeira Island in the 1920s?
In our analysis we will focus on Madeiran and continental Portuguese periodical press, as well as on the existing film copy in the Arquivo Nacional das Imagens em Movimento (ANIM). Our aim is to find some answers to that question.
In 1927, Manuel Luiz Vieira did not abandon the production of films of facts, highly applauded by both the local public and the madeiran diaspora: in this cinema genre that Vieira was practicing since 1922, they looked for a (supposed) transparent representation of the beauties of the island, as well as the novelties of the Madeiran everyday life. However, O Fauno das Montanhas was written, directed and produced under the (new) influence of the French cinema avant-garde of the 1920s. Thus, Vieira has now another challenge: question the mimetic and regionalist cinema till then produced in Madeira; discuss the idyllic and reassuring image of Madeira created by those films.  In this context, the effect of the fantastic was an efficient film strategy to create a new and disturbing image of Madeira Island, displaying realities which quite often have been disregarded by the reality itself.

Keywords: Silent Cinema; 1920s; Manuel Luiz Vieira; Fantastic; Madeira Island; Empreza Cinegráfica Atlântida; O Fauno das Montanhas.