Santosguito

Bocage was a Portuguese poet, contemporary and sympathizer of the French Revolution but in a deeply conservative, catholic and royalist country. Like Camões, another great Portuguese poet, his fame rose not only from his considerable talent, but also by dieing just before his country got overrun by a foreign power, earning him a status of national symbol.

Not much details are known about Bocage's biography, and that's where this work of historical fiction gets interesting, presenting a version of what could have happened in the last 15 years of his life.

Although at times a gross oversimplification of the end of the 18th century reality in Portugal, the plot remains entertaining and educational enough - portraying the bohemian, cultural, political and social life of the time in Lisbon.

Unfortunately, the acting is quite bad, with Miguel Guilherme (Bocage) and Manuel João Vieira (Agostinho Macedo) possibly providing the worse performances in the series.

The locations, costumes and characterization are very good at creating a 1790s setting. Overall, an interesting series, I only wish that the acting would have been better.

This is an excellent opportunity for all linguists and Iberian-language speakers to get to know the other official language of Portugal - together with Portuguese - the Mirandese (from the region of Miranda do Douro).

After almost having disappeared from the world and still in risk of extinction, Mirandês is being revived by campaigns from local politicians with the help of the local population, and now it has school classes to pass on this heritage to their children and also it's own bards - a Mirandese rock band.

All in all, a good documentary piece of yet another forgotten European language, as langue d'oc and many others, and always a curious oddity to get to know.

No great performances required, no rich plot written, this is a simple and unpretentious reenactment of Pêro Vaz de Caminha's letter to king D. Manuel I of Portugal.

Pêro Vaz de Caminha was the senior scribe of the Portuguese armada of Pedro Álvares de Cabral that officially discovered Brazil in 1500, and this letter marks the beginning of the current country Brazil, founded on Portuguese colonization. Just for that reason this is an interesting enough film to anyone interested in world history.

The somewhat hammy acting is interspersed with text separators, but hey!, these were the 30's, cinema everywhere was still getting used to the 'talkies' and still had too much of the 20's influence to be really good. The Portuguese sailors' anguish on their long months at sea, the portrait of the native Brazilians, and the contact between the two civilizations are moving and funny enough because of the innocence with which they were acted.

All in all, good piece of entertaining, a classic of Brazilian cinema and a worthy theme. And it could kinda be considered a great-grandfather of Ridley Scott's 1492.