Garlanded with prizes from festivals around the world, this monochrome Portuguese movie is an odd affair. In the intriguing first 20 minutes, the kindly middle-aged Catholic Pilar supports civil-rights movements and helps co-religionists in Lisbon and abroad and troubled neighbours like the demented Aurora, who grew up in colonial Mozambique. After Aurora's death Pilar meets an elderly Italian, Gian Luca Ventura, who in a lengthy flashback without any dialogue reveals himself to have become Aurora's devoted lover around the time of the rise of the nationalist fight for independence. Naively simplistic in its narrative, opaque in its politics, the movie's appeal is hard to understand.
Tabu – review
Philip French
The critical success of this naive, politically opaque Portuguese oddity is hard to understand, writes Philip French
Contributor
Philip French
Philip French
The GuardianTramp
