User reviews

This was a disappointment: I had expected something sophisticated along the satirical lines of Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939), given its backdrop of an aristocratic fete. Instead, we're treated to a pretentious drama – basically a four-parter in which the main characters are named after the respective actors playing them! It's also set on an island to drive further home the idea of an allegory – but whose point is obscure, with the stream of ambiguous and heavy-going chatter being interrupted only by the occasional lyrical moment (the film, at least, looks good)!

International stars Michel Piccoli and Irene Papas appear as the elderly couple, while lovely Leonor Silveira (a recurring presence throughout the latter phase of Oliveira's career) is the younger woman and Rogerio Samora her jealous husband. They all try but are defeated by a meandering script – which eventually sees Piccoli expressing his love for Silveira: naturally, this gives rise to arguments…which are brought to an abrupt end by a gust of wind that ruins the younger couple's garden party. Five years later, things resume at a castle where the two couples are newly gathered: as before, there's no happy ending in sight for any of the characters – plus nature puts in a disruptive appearance yet again by way of a downpour.

Having to do perhaps with the impossibly advanced age of the director himself, what I'd watched of Oliveira's recent work prior to this had been imbued with a sense of calm meditation – which, unfortunately, has been replaced here by an unwieldy (and, frankly, tedious) rhetoric!