English Version | Love & Hope Issue: Roteiro

Love and poetry

At the end of the year, when the act of sharing takes on an even more special meaning, offer a book - of poetry. A simple gesture, but full of symbolism.

Love and the movies

What's your all-time favorite love movie? This was the question we put to some members of Light House, who didn't hesitate to share the works that moved them the most.

Sara Andrade, Director of New Publishing Projects

It won't be the happiest, most identifiable, or most commonplace love story, nor is it the first movie that springs to mind when you think of romance, but the best thing about Her (2013), in which Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with a virtual assistant played by Scarlett Johansson, is that it's a love affair that's more real than you might think, in that it touches on the various nuances of this difficult thing to describe, which is love. The expectations we create about a relationship, the fact that we fall in love with the idea (even when the object of affection is a real person and not an artificial intelligence) of someone and not with the person, again and again, and even the way we read between the lines of what we want to read, are some of the dimensions that linger in the mind, even after the final credits. Even its ending, showing that endings aren't always happy, that love "is forever as long as forever lasts" and also the (in)certainty that remains in the air that, from endings, new beginnings can always be born... these are all arguments that make it a favorite for the rawness and reality that can be read in the subliminal messages of this Spike Jonze masterpiece.

Ana Murcho, Vogue Features Editor

If there were any doubts, and there weren't, this challenge served to make me realize that I am, in fact, a dramatic person. Don't ask me for a good romantic movie to watch on Sunday, an already depressing day, because I may suggest something like Love Story (1970), the first name that came to mind as soon as we thought about making this mini-guide. I decided to put it aside because no one will want to see something so sad at this time of year - many readers may never want to see it, not even at Carnival, especially if they know that when it came out, people left the cinema crying. Still, I'll leave you with this: it's very, very beautiful. Having said that, I think Annie Hall (1977) may be the work that best represents my taste in this field. The film follows the adventures of comedian Alvy Singer (one of the most interesting male characters of all time, played by Woody Allen, who also directs), who faces a marital crisis with his girlfriend, Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), tries to find the secret to a successful relationship - eventually realizing that love is something fleeting, ridiculous and inexplicable, and yet necessary. Annie Hall, which won the Oscars for Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Actress, contains a wisdom that has no expiration date. "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member", explains Alvy, using Marx, at the beginning of the film. That's exactly how I feel.

Miguel Canhoto, Designer

The search for electricity is the life of Louis Wain, renowned for his anthropomorphic portraits of cats and the protagonist of The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021). The love he felt for his art, his refuge, the channel through which he connected with the world and silenced the misfortunes of everyday life, which illuminated the banal day of the citizens who bought the newspapers containing his works, which humorously created a parallel between the experience of cats and humans, ridiculous, happy, unhappy, complex, simple, connected to the electricity of the world. Everything changed forever when he met Emily Richardson, who came into his life like a thunderbolt, cultivated an intense love, and suddenly left, taken by terminal cancer shortly after starting their life together. Like a shadow, the grief remained with him for the rest of his life. In the short time they were together, they adopted a cat, Peter, who became the icon that guided their lives and inspired the feline theme for which they became known. In his search, he found an answer in love, the ultimate energy that connects us - which he felt in Emily's company - that made his stay on the planet meaningful and calmed his fears and anxieties. Beyond temporal and physical limits, this love continued to exist even when Emily was no longer with him. When we choose to be cruel or petty, when we embark on small evils that we assume are benign, we turn off our electricity. We stop shining and we damage the hope of sensitive and special people like Louis Wain, whose vocation it is to share his light with us. So, to whom these words may come: love, shine.

Mariana Silva, Journalist

If we're in the middle of the Christmas season, no one would begrudge you to choose a movie that's appropriate for the season, right? Love Actually (2003), while not the best love movie in history, is perhaps the movie that made me think most about love in all its forms. Young love. Mature love, perhaps too much so. Unrequited love. Love reciprocated by the Prime Minister (unlikely, but you never know). Love after you've experienced the love of your life. And even love in Portuguese, interpreted by Lúcia Moniz. In the light of any relationship, Love has its flaws, but it also has moments when the laughter overwhelms the background music. More special than these are the scenes that warm the heart and cool the face after a shower of salty tears. Love Actually may not be the best love movie in history, but it's the only one that makes me cry in the opening scene.

Beatriz Castelo, Intern

It is said that hope is the last to die, and I feel that the movie Letters to Juliet (2010) captures exactly this essence, highlighting the importance of seizing the moment, even when things don't go as planned. The story highlights the timelessness of love, showing that, whether it takes a month or 40 years, reuniting with your great first love will always be something you can never say no to. The action takes place in Verona, a city associated with Romeo and Juliet, adding an even more romantic and symbolic touch to the narrative, which revolves around the wall of love letters. Sophie, the main character, finds a letter from 1951 hidden in this wall and decides to respond with a piece of love advice, inspiring Claire, the author of the letter, to find her beloved from 50 years ago. The film conveys the idea that although love can face obstacles, persistence overcomes most adversities. When love is true, it faces and overcomes, any separation, any barrier, any difficulty. Especially the test of time.

Sofia Lucas, Editor-in-Chief

A perfect symphony of images, sounds, and emotions, starring the magnificent actors Maggie Cheung (Su) and Tony Leung Chiu-wai (Chow). Hong Kong, 1962, is the setting for a love story that is visually stunning, but tragic in its mismatch, accompanied by silent and subtle desire and lust, making In The Mood For Love (2000) one of the best romantic films ever produced, and my favorite among the many favorites I could list. For nothing in particular and everything is special. For me the film is a work of art that touches all the senses, each frame could be isolated and framed like a small masterpiece, painted by the master Wong Kar-Wai, of whom I am a profound admirer. The strength and simplicity of the few dialogues, as intense as the eloquent silences in the slow-motion movements, are pure poetry. The wonderful closet is also part of the poem, the changes of dress of Su, the central character, record the passing of the days in a sublime way and suspend us in a mesmerizing atmosphere, enveloped in a brilliant soundtrack that only makes the film even more perfect. The final scene of this story of mismatch shows Chow whispering something into a hole in the wall of a temple and sealing it with clay before walking away. It's impossible to know the words that were spoken, but one imagines that it was his confession of love for Su and all the desires he could never reveal to anyone.

Diego Armés, GQ Features Editor

If love letters have to be, as Pessoa claimed, ridiculous, then good love stories must be impossible. Love that comes true is destined to be nothing more than a Sunday afternoon movie caught by accident during a random zap. Winter is full of such love stories. They're usually called romantic comedies - that's the hypnotic expression they've introduced into us from who knows when and which when read or heard, makes us suspend plausibility and common sense, predisposing us to accept lame and barely believable plots without contest. For all these reasons, the love movie that most involved and moved me has as its protagonist an inanimate metal doll whose creator left unfinished - his hands were missing - and which, by magic, came to life. Of his own free will, he turned the available scissors into his hands; of Caroline Thompson's and Tim Burton's, he was discovered by an Avon saleswoman who found him very funny, as would her daughter, Kim Boggs, played by the then sweet and young Winona Rider, who unexpectedly fell in love with Eduardo - and he with her. Edward Scissorhands (1990) is a love story and a gothic tale with an unhappy ending, starring what was, at the time, the cutest couple in Hollywood - Winona played Kim while Johnny Depp put on his suit and stuck on Edward's sharp gloves (at the time, Depp tattooed "Winona Forever" on his right shoulder, helping, in the medium term, to enlighten the average citizen about the illusion of eternity in love). The cynicism of all these considerations is the result of age and the bitterness of someone who can't come to terms with the fact that he cried his eyes out when he saw the movie for the first time, many, many years ago. But deep down inside me, if I see it snowing and imagine that Kim Boggs is watching, with tenderness and nostalgia, the snowdrifts slowly falling, I know that I will be moved and that I too will think "There's Eduardo making ice statues in the garden."

José Santana, GQ Editor-in-Chief

I can't say which love story made it to the movies I liked the most or most marked me. There were several, so I chose a movie that I hadn't remembered for many years, Strawberries and Chocolate (1993), by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabió. It's about the love story between two friends, about accepting being the opposite and continuing to be a human being for each other. We live in a time when we immediately discard anyone who doesn't think like us, which would immediately make the friendship in this story impossible. One is a young heterosexual university communist and the other is a homosexual artist. Someone once said that "the exclusion of difference is the shortest path to the suppression of the human."

Carolina Nunes, Fashion Assistant

You can call me childish, but my favorite romantic movie will always be the teen rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). I remember that the first time I saw this movie was on my mother's computer, on a flash drive that a colleague of hers had pirated (please don't take me to jail!), and since then I don't think there's been a single year of my life in which I haven't watched it again, to feel that sense of comfort that no other can give me. Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles are the protagonists, and then there are the clichés, all the usual design with the strong presence of 90s trends and just the right amount of humor and, above all, tears... I know and will always know that poem. I don't need to give you a synopsis here, because either you've already seen it or, if you haven't, I strongly advise you to go and see it and I don't want to give away any spoilers. The truth is that I could be here making honorable mentions of other films in the genre, but the truth is that none of them come close. "Not even close, Not even a little bit, Not even at all."

Maria Inês Pinto, Journalist

It's not a masterpiece, it's extremely predictable and, what's more, it doesn't add anything innovative to the world of cinema. It's a big cliché and - a fact about me - there's nothing I love more than a big cliché. I could have chosen HER, Casablanca, In the Mood for Love, or any other great movie that made me seem slightly more interesting and intelligent, but that would be going against my nature. I'm a fan of romantic comedies and there's none like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. First of all - and again being cliché - Andie, the character played by Kate Hudson, is a journalist at a magazine, Composure. I have an eternal crush on characters like these, from Carrie Bradshaw to Jacqueline Carlyle they are always my favorites. Life imitates art? I love the dynamic between Andie and Ben, who spend the movie trying to sabotage what is a perfect relationship, which becomes not only comical, but sometimes irritating and, above all, strangely and overly relatable (life imitates art?). Nothing like a good mind game - and anyone who's seen the movie will certainly agree with me. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a cinematic hug. Maybe it's because it's comfortable and expected, but every time I re-watch it, I feel stupidly cozy, if that makes sense. All fifteen times.

Maria Monteiro, Advertisement & Events Trainee

It's not just another story in which books can bring people together or drive them apart, as I like to do. In Notting Hill (1999), the London neighborhood that receives the prize of having its name associated with an iconic film, time stands still in a small bookshop, and even celebrities become simple lovers of stories. As well as bringing together Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, it also brings together what are two unlikely realities. We've all thought that the celebrity we fall in love with is also a normal person who, by chance, will meet us and, who knows, fall in love with us. But of course, only in our dreams, or in the movies. In Notting Hill, love happens and the movie star enters the life of a normal family! She lets the turkey burn, and bumps into the innocence of the owner of the small bookshop, who is caught off guard between flashbulbs and red carpets, and those moments define the expression "cliché." But the movie is beautiful, the people are beautiful and the places are beautiful! And we think: we're all going to find a Hugh Grant who transports us to another reality, right?

Gonçalo Castelo Soares, Senior Film Maker

Like the rest of Paul Thomas Anderson's filmography, Phantom Thread (2017) is an unusual love story, in the sense that it chooses to represent romance as an exhausting element. The atypical story of Reynolds and Alma quickly bypasses the infatuation phase (it almost runs over it) and heads straight for what it wants to explore: the terrifying habituation to the constant presence of a whole new human being. It quickly creates a game of ups and downs, of small victories, annoyances, and jealousies; of asexual micro-dynamics that almost seem to come out of a playground. Simple discussions are elevated to a level of ridiculousness only matched by the elegance with which they are executed from a cinematographic point of view. It's a love story that is also a story of power. A story about sacrificing the idiosyncrasies of singlehood. A movie about habits and habituation that questions the privileged notion that we can continue to follow a 100% selfish line when we want to let someone else in. Love is a battle, with the only solution being a game of negotiation taken to its maximum exponential.

Pedro Vasconcelos, Journalist

I hide behind the ambiguity of the concept of love and take this opportunity to talk about my favorite film, Cinema Paraíso (1998). Having tired out everyone around me with the suggestion, I turn to the pages of Vogue Portugal. No, I'm not going to dissect how the work is a love letter to cinema. In my opinion, what makes it a love movie is the relationship between the main character, Salvatore, and his mentor, Alfredo. The affection the two share is one of the most beautiful demonstrations of non-romantic love. Even years after seeing the movie for the first time, I can't listen to its music without bursting into tears.

*Originally translated from the Love & Hope Issue, published December 2023. Full credits and stories in the print issue.