Doesn't anyone appreciate this film?

Overall, I quite enjoyed the film. However, John Malkovich's poorly tailored, dumpy butt sailor suit was really, distractingly, bad.

But, LOVED the ship blowing up with Malkovich screaming "Jump, Jump, Jump.......BOOOOOOM!!!!" <Freezeframe>

That last scene is Malkovich's best work ever!

Well, a webforum is the last place you should look for when searching comments for this film.
It is not a blockbuster, it is not an action film or a comedy, despite what's written in its introduction.
It is a film about civilization in a broad sense. It is not by chance that the table held a conversation with Greek, French, Italian and North-American people. The Portuguese were invited, and the reason for that is explained in the first five minutes.
If you are not keen to such kind of discussion, I mean, foreign politics, foreign culture, etc... and you do believe in one "axis of evil", as said by George W. Bush, you should not see this film, it is not for you. Go wath "die hard" or something.
And this is the main audience to this site's forum.
And the saddest thing is people saying they'd rather "google" to know something instead of reading a book or asking someone.
Alas, this just strenghtens the film's message!

I saw it last night. I must say, I REALLY enjoyed this film. The conversations between mother and the daughter and the the 3 magnificent lady actresses of our time. I was so happy to see Irene Pappas after such a long long time.

Jubinne

I do liked it, but you have to accept that the storytelling is quite bizarre.

The movie IMO have been clearly divided in 3 parts.

The 1st part portrays a portuguese mother and her daughter traveling from Lisbon to another historical cities settled around mediterranean sea (Marseille, Naples, Pompeii, Atenas, Istanbul, Cairo-Gizeh, Aden). Their final destination is Bombay, India, just like Vasco da Gama 500 years before.
This part feels like "Sophie's World" meets "Lonely Planet" because the mother is an intellectual guide for her daughter (pretty much like "Alberto Knox" to "Sofie") and because at times it also looks like one of those traveler shows by Discovery Channel.

The 2nd part is a sort of roundtable with the characters played by John Malkovich, Irene Papas, Stefania Sandrelli and Catherine Deneuve. They argues about the western civilization, its history, it's present, it's future, the new role of the women in this world, it's decadence and at the same time it's vitality based on its cultural richness.
Everyone speaks in their own language (English, French, Italian, Greek), the language barriers doesn't exist. This is obviously a wishful thinking by the director and screenwriter (Manoel de Oliveira) because the world is heading towards the adoption of one single language (english) which obviously affects multiculturalism.

The 3rd and last part IMO represents fanatism destroying civilization (as it have happened in the past, just like Rosa Maria has explained to her daughter before in the movie).
The last act of this movie is quite pessimistic.

No doubt, this is the vision of a man who at the time of shooting this film was 95 yo (Believe it or not Manoel de Oliveira at the age of 100 is still making movies!). Somebody who thru his long life saw and survived 2 world wars, the cold war, countless regional conflicts (Vietnam, Korea, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cambodia, etc.). The fall of Berlin Wall. The adoption of democracy after the defeat of the Nazi-fascism and its decline after the 9/11 and the so called "War on Terror", etc.

I meant's it's not an easy movie, sometimes as I've said above, it feels more like a documentary, later looks like an episode of "Globe Trekker", finally as one of those roundtables aired by the BBC with intellectuals from around the world talking about the current situation of the world.

The only films slightly similar to this movie that I've seen are "Sophies World" by Erik Gustavson (based on the popular book of the same name) and "Notre Musique" by Jean-Luc Godard, none of them are precisely "summer blockbusters". This movie neither.

You gotta have some cultural baggage in order to understand what the characters are talking about, and more important: to understand its implications. I am not saying you need a Ph.D as a pre-requisite to follow the story. Of course not, but some notions on universal history, classical mithology, and sociology are quite handy. Otherwise the movie might not make sense for some viewers.

I mean this is not "Norbit" nor "Dumb & Dumber".

I've noticed many people don't like this film, and many are downright hostile to it, mostly calling it lame and boring.

The film is a masterpiece in my opinion. It's brilliant, filled with wonderful imagery and great, thought provoking dialogue. The pacing is also beautiful as well. Everytime I watch the film, the ending still shakes me up.

I will concur that Malkovich is a bit silly at times as the captain. Another poster suggested that the actor playing the Portuguese actor in this movie (his name is Luis Miguel Cintra and he has appeared in many of de Oliveira's films, he's basically playing himself in this movie) could have played the captain and done it much better. I would agree. Cintra speaks Portuguese, French, and English very well. He spoke all 3 languages in de Oliveira's film The Convent.

This is one of my favorite films. A film about how the Europeans spread civilization throughout the world.

Well, there's not much to appreciate. A somewhat charming travelogue and mother-daughter bonding followed by a jarringly interruptive Captain's Table chat, followed by mother-daughter-Captain's Table-chat-bonding, followed by - OMFG!!!! - mother-and-daughter immolation in fiery Time Bomb Explosion. Pointless though well photographed.