Nathaniel drake carlsonsaid.While I appreciate the well considered thought that went into this assessment and I certainly acknowledge the formal accomplishments you speak of I'm afraid I just can't agree. I wish I could. I recently and finally saw this during the retrospective in Chicago and brought along two friends, one of whom teaches theatre and the other film. I knew more or less what to expect and I thought this would be a perfect group to experience it with. The friend who teaches theatre had never seen any Oliveira before though he was well informed and prepared as well. My other friend was, admittedly, less amenable to this from the start as he is hardly an Oliveira fan and gets stuck on the dialogue heavy nature of the films.

• Dr De Oliveira

He understands and appreciates that this is endemic to Oliveira's project but that doesn't endear it to him. I set all this up so that I can attempt to somewhat justify my own response as not totally anomalous. Almost from the start I was not liking what I was seeing and my discontent grew rapidly and deepened over the course of the next hour and a half. I was literally startled when intermission arrived as I genuinely felt as though the screening had already lasted the full 4 + hours. The remaining two were virtually unbearable and I was really disappointed to be exposing my friends to this one as a necessary experience purely on the basis of its overwrought reputation.

Though they were good sports about the whole thing neither were impressed by it. And it's not as though we were missing the relevant insight here. God knows I'm an ardent enthusiast for Oliveira but in all honesty I prefer almost anything else to this.

My friends and I all complelety grasped the details you analyze here but it just was in no way enough to justify the picture's excruciating length. For me it functions as an archival piece mostly, capturing a specific stage in the development of Oliveira's aesthetic. It does have value in that sense, yes, but I can't understand or relate to the excessive enthusiasm from people whose opinions I respect, such as yourselves, Zach Campbell, Rosenbaum, etc. Once again, for me almost every facet of this picture which you point to has been refined since this to achieve considerably more impressive aims. The foregrounding of the formal moves on their own has little resonance for me.

Also, I just can't believe that the content here which all the meta-textual gestures are designed to elucidate didn't just feel like profoundly boring, hoary old material to you. One of the things Oliveira generally does so very well is select great texts to adapt or else engage with terrific collaborators in a visionary way. But this basic narrative material is so relentlessly banal and solipsist and (perhaps intentionally) hermetically limited in scope or resonance that I simply could not care less.

The formal advances are wasted on all this nonsense and don't elevate matrerial which has so little depth or worth. I assume we are meant to be compelled and astonished by the concept of devotion itself in its panoply of expressivity, ranging from rational to irrational and be then compelled to assess the legitimacy of our own assessment of it. But if the 'love story' at the center has such arrested ambition it's hard to see it, once again, as deserving of this treatment. Is the point that it shouldn't have to be any particular kind of love to merit that?

Okay, but even so it still feels oh so very slight by comparion to the virtual perfection of something like La Lettre. Zach Campbell over at Elusive Lucidity also makes an elegant case for the metaphysical implications of Oliveira's techinque but ultimately is left with skeptical conclusions regarding the foundation of his own investigation. Deservedly so in my opinion and I hate to say that. I can't help but think that this very fact though, specifically the implication that the metaphysical potency of Doomed Love may be subjective and self-applied and thus easier to ultimately disregard or reject with relief, is the very reason for its stunning popularity with somebody like Rosenbaum, whom I can't take seriously anymore since his dismissal of Valley of Abraham (Oliveira's greatest film in my view) and his highly dubious list of Oliveira's films in ranked order of preference. Anyway, sorry to ramble on like that but I would genuinely like to know your thoughts on these matters as I suspect your attitudes are closer to my own than mine are to either Campbell or Rosenbaum.

Thanks again for the well considered write up. Said.Nathaniel, Thank you for your fine comments. I suppose, ultimately, my assessment of Doomed Love's place among Oliveira's work derives from my opinions on Francisca and Valley of Abraham, which I feel very strongly are his two best works other than Doomed Love. Francisca may have it beat on its formal radicalism and Valley of Abraham on its level of entertainment (relative to Oliveira's corpus) but I do think Doomed Love brings something substantial to bare on both fronts.

I personally find it more moving than Francisca and more formally adventurous and rigorous than Valley of Abraham. I look at it as the Oliveira film that has it all, and that, to wit, does not seem to strike such an avowedly anti-cinematic position, but rather adds to cinema's equation. Also, Rosenbaum's Oliveira piece was flummoxing and the list beyond arbitrary.

Actually, it was quite honestly stupid. Michael Lisa adds: Doomed Love is exceptional for the balance it strikes between the literary, the theatrical and the cinematic, something achieved by neither of the two other works mentioned. Also, its strong artifice in its aesthetic may just be a matter of a personal preference that Michael and I share. Said.Dear Kevin, I very much recommend 'Abraham's Valley,' which to my thinking is one of the three finest Oliveira pictures I have seen (among the 15-20, roughly).

Among his not insignificant number of masterpieces, it is rates with the very best, including 'Doomed Love.' While I have stated my preference for 'Doomed Love,' largely on the level of its formal/stylistic rigor, 'Abraham's Valley' is to my mind a more consistently engaging experience. Also, you can add items like 'New Film' or 'Classic Film' through the 'Add a Widget' command within the 'Customize' tab.

Dr De Oliveira

Sorry to all you non-bloggers out there. Said.Michael and Lisa - you have an exceptional blog, and I thank you for your articulate appreciation of 'Doomed Love.'

All that you mention here-the way in which it 'adds to cinema's equation' and strikes a balance between 'the literary, the theatrical, and the cinematic' seems so in tune with elements I find exciting in my experience with film. But, I have to say, even though I am not familiar with de Oliveira's work, and I even anticipate seeing 'Valley of Abraham,' I cannot imagine any other reason for the praise 'Doomed Love' has received, which I saw at the Gene Siskel Film Center a few years back, than a fetishistic, perhaps egoistic, engagement with the most obscure, bleak corners of cinema history. I say that knowing full well that an auteur as influential as de Oliveira is always interesting to cineastes in the entirety of their filmography, and with an experiential knowledge of what it is like to defend those bleak corners myself.but, my god, 'Doomed Love' is a slog. Even while re-reading your descriptive passages, I failed to reengage or even recall any of it, my brain perhaps recoiling as it did post-screening, when I stood outside the theater amazed and relieved at how quickly the whole experience had fallen out of mind. With that said, one of my passions is the ongoing conversation of great film, particularly the avant-garde, the meta-cinematic, the farthest, most challenging reaches.

I would never tell anyone that they are wrong for liking what they like-I taught film for a number of years, and although the temptation has presented itself, it gets you nowhere. I believe you love 'Doomed Love' for all of the reasons you expound on here-keep up the great work. Ultimately, I just needed to express how confounding it is to me that there are people out there who love this film. Thanks for your time, jjh.

SynopsisA magical tale about a young photographer who falls madly in love with a woman he can never have, except in his dreams. Late one night, Isaac is summoned by a wealthy family to take the last photograph of a young bride, Angelica, who mysteriously passed away. Arriving at their estate, Isaac is struck by Angelica's beauty, but when he looks through his lens, something strange happens - the young woman appears to come to life. From that moment, Isaac will be haunted by Angelica day and night.A magical tale about a young photographer who falls madly in love with a woman he can never have, except in his dreams. Late one night, Isaac is summoned by a wealthy family to take the last photograph of a young bride, Angelica, who mysteriously passed away. Arriving at their estate, Isaac is struck by Angelica's beauty, but when he looks through his lens, something strange happens - the young woman appears to come to life. From that moment, Isaac will be haunted by Angelica day and night.Parental GuideUploaded By:March 20, 2019 at 11:34 PM.

Reviewed by howard.schumann 9 / 10 Spiritually informed, filled with the truth of life'At night he stands up, the distant call of birds already deep inside him; and feels bold, because he has taken all the galaxies into his face.' Rainer Maria RilkeTo the contemplative background of a Chopin Sonata, 102-year old Manoel de Oliviera's The Strange Case of Angelica is a quietly masterful meditation on the thin line between the present and the past and between this world and the next. Even after half a century of making movies, The Strange Case of Angelica shows that Oliviera is willing to take risks and explore issues that most directors stay far away from. Winner of numerous awards at Cannes and Venice, Oliviera's camera is often static and even by standards of art cinema, the film is slow, yet, even though it can be heavy-going at times, it is atmospheric, moody, and spiritually informed, filled with the truth of life.In the middle of a rainy night, Isaac (Ricardo Trepa), a Sephardic Jewish photographer, is summoned by wealthy hotel owners to take photos of their daughter, Angelica (Pilar L贸pez de Ayala), who has suddenly died. A beautiful bride dressed in her wedding gown with a hint of a smile on her face, Isaac is immediately captured by her presence and magically sees Angelica open her eyes and smile at him through the lens of his camera. He becomes obsessed with Angelica, dreaming of her angelic smile, and starts to withdraw from the outside world. He becomes, in the phrase of John Banville, 'all inwardness, gazing out in ever intensifying perplexity upon a world in which nothing is exactly plausible, nothing is exactly what it is.'

The landlady of the boarding house where he is staying notices Isaac's odd behavior and sullen disposition and comments to her other guests that he has become strange. One night, as he stands in the dining room, he sees a group of workers tilling the soil and singing work songs as they would have done in the 1950s and rushes out to the vineyard to photograph them. Underlying the director's view that beauty has disappeared from modern life, when the same scene appears again later in the film, the work is being done by noisy overbearing machines and the sweet music of the worker's song has been replaced by the roar of the tiller's engine.As his fellow boarders and a pair of engineers take their meals, they talk about the cancellation of a bridge-building project, the difference between matter and anti-matter, and the current economic climate, yet Isaac stands aloof sipping on coffee and shows little interest. One night Angelica's spirit appears and reaches out to him through the dimensions and hovers over his sleeping body. In a vivid out-of-body experience, he takes her hand as they soar together through the clouds above farms and villages, in rapturous embrace.Though Isaac talks about, 'that strange reality' saying, 'perhaps it was just a hallucination, but it was just as real as waking life,' the experience binds him ever closer to Angelica and, as if gripped by a sudden feverish insanity, loses his grip on the everyday world around him.

Though at times lacking in lightness of spirit, The Strange Case of Angelica is the work of a master who challenges us to see the 'absolutely unbroken continuity' between life and death, informing us with his camera that love is forever, that life is forever. Reviewed by jorged-1 1 / 10 Not poetic, just awfulI wanted to see this movie so badly because of many other good films its director made in the past.

But I was very disappointed.:( This movie is weak and has and absurd story.The acting is not bad (what can they do anyway with the terrible lines they are sometimes given) and there are a couple of good moments. But all the ghost love story is just absurd and never starts in my opinion. It has an amateurish quality that plays against it.What makes me angry is that this movie is sold as an art movie just because of its director. This is not poetic, it is just one bad movie.Honestly, one to skip. Reviewed by ronchow 7 / 10 A ghost story - sort ofI was informed before the showing that Director Manoel de Oliviera was over 100 years old when he directed this film. So I took that into consideration. That may be one of the reasons I did not walk out half way through the screening.However, in retrospect, this is not a bad film, but one that is very personal (for the director) to the extent it may not connect with everyone.

Many inserts to the film (e.g. The labourers in the field) may have no bearing to the story but they were there. And an average Joe like me couldn't understand the reason why they were there.

Metaphor, poetry, or scenery diversion may be the reasons but I could not tell.In a sense it is a story about a young photographer losing his mind, and eventually his health, as a result of the escalating obsession following an encounter with a beautiful, dead woman. That I can relate to. But the story could definitely be told in a more lively, and less arty fashion to appeal to a larger audience.