In the last decade, Portugal's Manoel de Oliveira has won belated recognition among cinephiles as one of the most consistently innovative talents in contemporary world cinema. This latest work by the 80-year-old master has been widely hailed as "the most youthful film of the year." "De Oliveira's latest teaser (and it does tease and usurp the audience's expectations in the wickedest way) is a kind of opera about the wedding of a rather gloomy-looking Viscount to a beautiful lady while a Don Juan figure looks on enviously from the sidelines. The first part deliberately exploits all the most tedious operatic conventions, but patience is rewarded in the second half with a series of grotesque happenings (which should not be revealed in a synopsis) involving a well-cooked roast which is not what it seems and an outbreak of anarchy which makes Buñuel look rather reserved. De Oliveira, in fact, is sending up all kinds of conventions (literary and operatic). It is also his most sumptuous production to date, with outstanding color, costuming and period design. Rich and strange, indeed." John Gillett, London