Arquivo

A reconstituting of the last days of Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco (1826-1890) who, together with Eça de Queiroz, was a great novelist of manners. Based on some of his letters, the film conveys the image of a virile, controversial, romantic man. The writer had difficulties with his eyesight and, one day, woke up blind. To director Manoel de Oliveira, blindness was to become the prevailing force at the end of the author?s life, marked by lack of money, madness for one of his children, a marriage without love, in a state of decadence that eventually led him to suicide. As in the short film, Famalicão, also inspired on the writer, for a setting, the film maker uses Castelo Branco?s house in the city of São Miguel de Seide. Shown at the 16th Mostra.