This was my first contact, a few years ago, with the work of portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, and I was completely astonished. The movie is given to a lot of interpretations, and the way I see it, it presents in it several extremes of the kind of people that in fact exists in our society. The story takes place in an insane institution, where all the "clients" believe they are an historical character. So we have a couple who believes to be Adam and Eve, we have another who sees himself as Jesus, another one wants to die so he can return to life as Lazarus did. But the characters whose dialogues I enjoyed the most where the prophet and the philosopher. This one is a none believer who is always discussing with the prophet on the theme of god. The prophet spends the movie carrying a book which he says has the truth in it, it's like the fith gospel. In the end (and I saw that as the true message of the movie), we find out that the book is totally empty. Just blanke pages. If the mankind history was almost always made by wars in the basis of books which had supposed truths in it, and those wars caused a lot of pain in lots of people troughout the times, than we should write no longer. The true gospel is in the good actions, not in a book with written
things that can be interpreted in many ways, even lethal ways... Think about it... and watch the movie to help you.
things that can be interpreted in many ways, even lethal ways... Think about it... and watch the movie to help you.