12 Movies Directed by Manoel de Oliveira

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A drama following stories of characters from the Portuguese High Society.

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Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. Young marries Dr. Carlo Paiva, who she is not attracted to, but is her father's friend. They move to the Valley of Abraham. Carlo loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room, to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. With time she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage so, with all the freedom she has, she takes a lover.

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The journey of Michael Padovic, an American professor who arrives with his wife, Helene, at a Portuguese convent where he expects to find the documents needed to prove his theory: Shakespeare was born in Spain; not in England.

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Manoel is aging film director who travels with the film crew through Portugal in search of the origins of Afonso, a famous French actor whose father emigrated from Portugal to France and in process remembers his own youth.

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A well-bred, lovely, spiritual, sad young woman marries an attentive physician who loves her. She feels affection but no love. Soon after, without design, she falls in love with Pedro Abrunhosa, a poet and performance artist. He also loves her. She keeps her distance from him, confessing her love to a friend who is a nun and, later, to her husband. Hunger for her love and jealousy consume him; she attends him as he wastes away. With his death, she can marry and express her passion, but what she does and how she explains herself, particularly to her cloistered friend, is at the heart of the film. Glimpses of convent life and of Abrunhosa on stage give contrast and mute comment.

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The comfortable daily routines of aging Parisian actor Gilbert Valence, 76, are suddenly shaken when he learns that his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been killed in a car crash. Having to take care of his now-orphaned grandson, he struggles to go on with his lifelong acting career like he's used to. But the roles he is offered -- a flashy TV show and a hectic last-minute replacement in an English-language film of Joyce's Ulysses -- finally convince him that it's time to retire.

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The city of Porto viewed by the intimate eye of Manoel de Oliveira.

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Having lost her place among the social elite, a widow remarries and starts a family.

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A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.

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Belle toujours occurred to me unexpectedly and, as I had the will to pay my tribute to Luis Buèuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, I was happy to have found a way to do so, perhaps the best, and I started working. What is it about? Taking two of the strange characters from the film Belle de Jour, and make them relive, thirty eight years later, in the strangeness of a secret which was only in the possession of the masculine character and a knowledge that had become crucial to the female character. Thus, passed this time, they meet again. She tries to avoid him by all means. But he stalks her and eventually manages to gain her attention with the intention of revealing the secret that he alone can unfold. They set a meeting, a dinner, where she expects that all will be revealed. During dinner, she, now a widow, awaits the expected revelation: what he had told her husband while he was mute and paralytic because of a gunshot wound fired by a lover of hers. The situation is tense and she ends up in despair without being able to find out what in truth happened. He is satisfied in his sadism and in his particular revenge from the ways of that woman, who deep down desired him but whose haughty ways never allowed him to possess her.

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On a train to the Algarve, Macèrio tells his story to a sympathetic woman he's just met. In flashbacks he arrives in Lisbon to work as an accountant and a broker for his uncle. From his office window, he sees a young woman, Luèsa: he's intrigued and finds her beautiful; she holds a Chinese fan near her face. He arranges to meet her, and they fall in love. When he tells his uncle he wants to marry, not only does his uncle disapprove, he fires Macèrio who then leaves his uncle's home to live on his own. Penniless, he takes a job in Cape Verde to earn some money so Luèsa and he can wed. Will she wait, and what of her peculiarities? His seatmate on the train wants the whole story.

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A magical tale about a young photographer who falls madly in love with a woman he can never have, except in his dreams. Late one night, Isaac is summoned by a wealthy family to take the last photograph of a young bride, Angelica, who mysteriously passed away. Arriving at their estate, Isaac is struck by Angelica's beauty, but when he looks through his lens, something strange happens - the young woman appears to come to life. From that moment, Isaac will be haunted by Angelica day and night.