User Reviews

Faithful to the original theatrical play "Frei Luís de Sousa" by Almeida Garrett, the production is accurate to XVI century Portugal. Especially noteworthy are the costumes and settings.

The acting suffers from being over-theatrical. Even making allowances for the über-tragedy that is "Frei Luís de Sousa", the actors fall into every vice learned at the theater and seem to forget that they changed the medium to film.

With way too much "ooooooh, misfortune!, oooooooooooooh, the tragedy!, ooooooooooooooooh", this ends up being just an overacted filmed play. That being said, it is still worth it for history and classic theater buffs.

This film tells the tragedy of a Portuguese noble family from the early seventeenth century. Portugal had been without a king after the disappearance of King Sebastian in the Battle of Alcacer Quibir (1578) and his uncle's death, King Henry I. Consequently, Portugal lost its independence. The life of Madalena de Vilhena, a Portuguese aristocrat, was deeply affected by these events: her husband, Dom João de Portugal, disappears in the battle, being presumed dead. So she married Manuel de Sousa Coutinho, having a daughter, Maria. Nevertheless, the fear of her first husband's return never ceased to haunt her ...

Directed by João Botelho, this movie is the film adaptation of a play by Almeida Garrett. Features a cast which included Suzana Borges (as Madalena), Patricia Guerreiro (as Maria), Rui Morrison (as Manuel de Sousa Coutinho), Rogério Samora (as Frei Jorge), José Pinto (as Telmo Pais), Francisco D'Orey (as Dom João) and Bruno Martelo (as King Sebastian).

This film is a contemporary revisiting of film "Frei Luís de Sousa", a classic of the fifties. So the story is the same but the quality declined. Being a 2001 movie, the audience expects something more than this film doesn't have to give us: cinema. This film suffers from defects and errors that the Portuguese cinema, usually elitist, pseudo-intellectual and misanthropic, insists on cultivating: a dark and poor photography, monotonous and still scenes, overly theatrical actors, unnatural dialogs (virtually copied from Garrett's play), almost total absence of soundtrack or sound effects, theatrical scenery and virtual absence of figuration. Its a good film for those who like theater but a bad one for those who want cinema. Its an excellent film for more intellectual audience (or pseudo- intellectuals, as are most of Portuguese so-called intellectuals), but a hideous film for general public. Thus, the Portuguese lost a good opportunity to make a movie (a real one, with more cinematic characteristics) based on this good drama. This is how the Portuguese players hope to promote Portuguese cinema among the public masses?