Visita ou memórias e confissões

The Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira died last year at the age of 106. In 1982, he shot a film in his house in Porto, where he lived for many decades. He ordered that the film could only be shown after his death.
It’s a very personal film “by me, about me”, as Oliveira’s voiceover states at the beginning. He shows family films and photos and talks about a visit by the famous film critic Andre Bazin to the family house designed by architect José Porto. He muses on film and architecture and talks about his arrest in 1963 by the secret police, who interrogated him for days.
Until the Carnation Revolution in 1974, Portugal suffered under a repressive dictatorship. The left-wing takeover also had disadvantages for De Oliveira: his father’s factory was taken over by the workers, after which it was sold and his family lived for a time in relative poverty. A difficult period which, however, “didn’t affect my soul”.

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