Saltimbancos (1951)

Director: Manuel Guimaraes 
Country: Portugal

The first Manuel Guimaraes' film, who had been an apprentice of the legendary Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira, "Saltimbancos" (which is a derogative word for a street artist) it's a tragic-comic neorealist film adapted from the novel "Circo" by Leao Penedo, about a group of circus artists struggling to make a living in an impoverished Portugal, the film belongs to the Portuguese Golden Age of Cinema and was made with a very limited budget.

The film starts with a voice over narration by Toni (Artur Semedo) who is looking for a job, and whose past is never revealed except for his passion for circus, he finds O Circo Maravilhas which is managed by Miss Dolly (Maria Olguim) an old woman , her husband Felismino (José Victor) and her daughter, a beautiful blonde named Delmirinha (Helga Liné) the circus is destroyed during a rainstorm and since that moment things get hard because they have to deal with poverty, misery, hungry and debts, Delmirinha's mind shifts during the road to Lisbon, because she wants to live a decent life and to have a steady job but those goals clash with her background and traditions and her boyfriend (Toni) knows it. 

Ambition fades away in the face of death but loyalty remains intact. One of my favorite moments in the film is when Felismino is trying to train his beloved friend named "Pombinho" (which means little pigeon), a stubborn but smart donkey, in order to perform a circus act, the donkey is the only animal acting in the film, and he did a great job. 

The narration through the film sounds beautiful and melancholic, and the movie brings Saudades of an innocent age when children enjoyed going to the circus, after all, Portuguese language is the language of the poets. Guimaraes was severely criticized at the time by the Portuguese critics, his movies were chopped up and he never received the recognizition he deserved, otherwise we would be talking about the Portuguese Fellini. This is a beautiful Portuguese gem and unfortunately a hidden and almost forgotten treasure that everybody must see.