Paulo Branco Movies

The musings of internationally renowned Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveiera on the power of thought and desire, and on good and evil, provide the underlying themes for this interesting reworking of the story of Faust. The story centers on the unconventional American professor, Michael Padovic, and his stunningly beautiful wife, Helene, who journey to an eerie Portuguese convent to prove that Shakespeare was in reality, a Jewish Spaniard. They journey to the spooky old convent of Arrabida where they are housed by the sophisticated, but rather creepy guardian of the monastery, Baltar, who immediately seems attracted to the cool Helene. In order to spend more time with her, Baltar arranges for Michael to spend all his time in the convent's great library; he is assisted by a beautiful young librarian. It is the wicked Baltar who tries to tempt Michael (in the way that Mephistopheles tempted Faust) into becoming immortal through his research and writing. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The human condition is examined in this Portuguese French film with opens with a warning that informs the audience that the following is not a documentary but a moral tale about the anachronisms of modern society. The story, set in an aging neighborhood filled with interesting characters, focuses upon an old blind man and his daughter. Every day, the blind one sits in a doorway sells thread and begs. The daughter spends her days ironing and complaining. Their neighborhood is not a wealthy one, and many passerby are envious of the old beggars' box of accumulated coins. It has been stolen before so the man and the daughter's boyfriend keep an eye upon it. Tragedy ensues when the box does indeed disappear. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This rather esoteric Portuguese-French drama is filled with poetic imagery. It is notable for it's beautiful photography as it follows a devoted nurse from her Portuguese home to the strange Cape Verde islands. Mariana is the nurse assigned to care for the injured immigrant worker Leao who is in a coma. With him she returns to his Cape Verde village. She was dissatisfied with her currently depressing life and willingly went. She begins to feel almost claustrophobic in the grim environment as she encounters a series of disturbing characters who drag her deeper into their depressing and hopeless lives. Mariana begins to reevaluate her former life. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This beautifully photographed German drama is set in Lisbon, a major center for contemporary European culture, and offers insight into the nature of cinema. Sound recordist Phillip Winter is driving to Lisbon to meet his old friend Friedrich Monroe who recently sent him a postcard asking Winter to help him with a documentary, but when he arrives, Monroe is nowhere to be found. Instead, Winter only finds a few cans of film shot on an old fashioned hand cranked camera. When he is not aimlessly ambling about the beautiful city recording sounds for the film, Winters passes the time playing with the local street children who are obsessed with chronicling even the smallest events on their video cameras. He also begins falling for Teresa, the singer whose band is composing the soundtrack for the documentary. Eventually Monroe returns with a brand new vision and some strong opinions on the sorry state of contemporary cinema. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The spirit of the open road carries away the protagonists in this cheerful film. After buying a 1957 Ford Fairlane (the first year cars had "fins") Manuel and his friend Artur (Felipe Cochofel and Antonio Pedro Figueiredo) are out just driving around for the sheer fun of it. Of course, it's a very old car, so sometime during the evening, it breaks down. At sunrise, they open the hood and try to get it going again, but meet with no success until Vitor (Canto e Castro), a local beekeeper, notices their plight. He used to be a mechanic, and he has no problem getting the car running again. He is an elderly fellow with a heart condition, but the car evokes in him a yearning to go out on the road with the younger men and look up a friend of his. Manuel and Artur agree to this quite cheerfully, and their good spirits don't diminish much when the old man quietly dies while in the car with them. At this point, their adventures are far from over, and they still have Vitor's friend to look up... ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this short drama, fraternal twins Armando and Beatriz are on their own together. They share many things in common, and have formed a household together while they undertake their new duties as apprentice firefighters. Armando has begun a little fling with a downstairs neighbor, and Beatriz is puzzled at her own unpleasant reaction to this. Could she be jealous? She is prone to hearing fires that aren't there, and this psychosomatic symptom only disappears when people, particularly attractive strangers, kiss her. She is getting a reputation for promiscuity, and this only adds to the tension between the twins. However, it eventually looks as though they will work things out, albeit in an unconventional, rather deviant manner. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Martine (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) hasn't been quite right in the head since she suffered a romantic reversal several years before, but she had been getting by in the regular world fairly well. However, when her current boyfriend tells her he's leaving, she promptly butts her head into a door so hard that she suffers from amnesia and is placed in a mental ward. There, she devotes her not inconsiderable energy and inventiveness to improving the romantic lives of her fellow patients. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Daniel and Maria were lovers at one time, but they have long since broken their affair off. However, when they keep running into one another at a Madrid department store, they start to think that perhaps Fate is saying something to them, and reluctantly they try to give one another a second chance -- when they aren't having second thoughts, that is. However, the trick that fate is really playing on them doesn't become clear until the very end. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this symbolic and philosophically weighty film, all of the inhabitants of a Portuguese mental asylum suffer from religious delusions of one kind or another -- even the cynic who denies the value of any religions at all. One couple re-enacts the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden, and then the woman who played at being Eve plays at being St. Teresa de Avila. Another man thinks he's a character from a Dostoyevsky novel, and yet another claims to have in his possession a fifth gospel from the Bible. Everyone has a point of view and is not shy about stating it, defending it in debate with the others with great sincerity, though (the reviewers claimed) with very little elegance or wit. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Episodes from entire military history of Portugal are told through flashbacks as a professorish soldier recounts them while marching through a Portuguese African colony in 1973. He easily draws his comrades into philosophical musings, and the little contingent suffers badly at the hands of the local military opposition. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this French romantic drama, Stephane (Michel Feller) wants to form a romantic bond with Sabine (Clotilde de Bayser), and to do this has left his pregnant girlfriend behind. Sabine would rather be with Bruno (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey) her former boyfriend, a stage actor. Bruno in turn is much more interested in his current girlfriend. Each person is, in his or her own way, attempting to deal with issues of maturity and responsibility and repeatedly fails to find happiness or even a decently tranquil compromise between their desires and the realities of their situations. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Filipa has to return to Portugal from Switzerland, where she has been living, to marry. She has invited her Swiss friend Marie to come along. Marie is a young lady who has enough money to indulge her doubts and scruples about what she is going to do with her life. She is between relationships at the moment, and the two old friends head off for Portugal. As they talk over their lives and plans for the future, it becomes very obvious that they live in two entirely different worlds. Rather than harming their relationship, these differences only heighten it. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi