José and Pilar is a Portuguese documentary directed by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes following the last years of the Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, chiefly through his relationship with his devoted wife, Pilar del Río. Highly praised by the critics and the audience, the film succeeds in portraying the tenderness, the genuine integrity and the deep humanity between the controversial writer and his wife. It gathers sequences from Madrid to Helsinki to Rio de Janeiro. It includes sequences life in Lanzarote, and during trips around the world as well as their simple, transient and quotidian moments during the period José writes his "The Elephant's Journey". The film was produced by Miguel Mendes' JumpCut, Fernando Meirelles's O2 and Pedro Almodóvar's El Deseo.
Plot
"The Elephant's Journey", in which Saramago narrates the adventures and antics of an elephant transported from the court of King John III of Portugal to that of the Austrian Archduke Maximillian, is the starting point of José and Pilar. The film shows us their daily life in Lanzarote and their trips around the globe, and is a surprising portrayal of an author throughout the creative process of a couple who decide to change the world, or at least to make it a better place. The film shows us an unknown Saramago, unravels any preconceived ideas we may have about the man and demonstrates that genius and simplicity can indeed be compatible. José and Pilar is a glimpse into one of the greatest creators of the Twentieth Century and shows us that, as Saramago said, "everything can be told in a different way."
" it's so carefully constructed that at times it feels like fiction, shuttling easily and with a surprising level of intimacy between Saramago, the public persona, and Saramago, the private man." in Variety.
"The film portrays Jose's clearheaded pessimism in his quests for human rights." in Cahiers du cinéma.
"An amazing film about the love that tied them together amid the exhausting daily routine of a public figure." in Diário de Notícias.
"José and Pilar is a documentary, but a documentary that dissolves the illusion of the pure documentary. The end of a cicle. A monument to the glory of a writer." in Público.
"Miguel Gonçalves Mendes took four years to make this documentary but watching it makes us realize it will last for much longer." in Expresso
" a documentary about a unique relationship you don't even have to be fond of José Saramago, his books or share his ideology to like José and Pilar." in Time Out.
