Mysteries of Lisbon
Raúl Ruiz
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Plot Summary
Raul Ruiz’s masterful adaptation of the eponymous nineteenth-century Portuguese novel by Camilo Castelo Branco evokes the complex intertwined narratives of Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens. The core story centers on Joao, the bastard child of an ill-fated romance between two members of the aristocracy who are forbidden to marry, and his quest to discover the truth of his parentage. But this is just the start of an engrossing tale that follows a multitude of characters whose fates conjoin, separate and then rejoin again over three decades in Portugal, Spain, France and Italy.
Credits
Director
Screenwriter
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Movie Reviews from Rotten Tomatoes
TOMATOMETER
84%- Reviews Counted: 49
- Fresh: 41
- Rotten: 8
- Average Rating: 7.6/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Fresh: The storytelling is straightforward, with a classical sheen, even as mischief and hallucination puncture the serene surface.
Fresh: Once you start to ride with the rapturous, gorgeous, digressive symphony of images and words and music in this film it's completely absorbing and unlike anything you've ever seen.
Fresh: It's telling that the movie, after reaching a tidy payoff, takes one last spin into an epilogue that questions the actuality of almost everything that's come before.
Rotten: A dull, high-minded soap opera.
Customer Reviews
Fabulous Raul Ruiz film
It's over 4 hours long, but it could have been longer. (The original was a 6-hour TV series). I loved every moment of it. I can't get get it out of my head. 18th and 19th century Portugal and Paris. Plenty of historic references. Great acting. Beautiful settings. Stories inside of stories. In Portuguese with English subtitles. The film is faultless. I just wish that I-Tunes allowed for a two-day rental period for a film of this length which is divided into a Part 1 and Part 1.
IT IS GOOD
It is agood movie if you have some time to kill. Make that a lot of time.
Dull
I love period movies and I rarely complain about a movie being dull, but this one went on forever (4 1/2 hours) and had way too many stories to be coherent. Because they often used the same sets to tell the stories of others, it made it even harder to follow. The only good actor in the whole movie was the Brazilian man. And the best part of the movie is that they ragged on the US and Brazilian slave trade, like Portugal never thought of slavery! The whole movie was about how the whole upper class slept with anything that move like a game of sport. By the last 45 mins. I just speed through to the end.
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- $14.99
- Genre: Drama
- Released: 2010
- © 2011 Southport Music Box Corporation d/b/a Music Box Films
