"It took Morais six years to finish his first feature, and it emerged from the labs just in time to win the Grand Prix at Locarno. It's set in 1978, at the start of the right-wing backlash against the Portuguese Revolution, and concerns a group of friends who are about to stage a play in the derelict studios of Lisboa Filmes. The play is based on Herculano's novel The Jester, a mythic romance that tangles issues of national identity around scenes from Portuguese history. About half the film comprises scenes from the play, stunningly designed; the other half offers an engaging account of the sexual and ethical confusions of Morais' generation. Non-Portuguese viewers may sometimes find themselves begging for footnotes to explain all the historical and cultural references, but there's no doubt about the film's aesthetic authority or its cumulative hypnotic power. It may sound like a cross between Rivette and De Oliveira, but the truth is that it's closer to a modernist Red Shoes." -Tony Rayns, London Film Festival '87