“The exile experience--voluntary or not--is a frequent preoccupation of Portuguese writers.... Jose, a young Portuguese living in Paris, returns home after the 1974 coup to witness the changes, both personal and political, brought about by the Revolution. Yet the new Portugal, though in so many ways the Portugal he dreamed about, is a foreign country to him. His moves back and forth between Paris and Portugal in the ensuing years parallel his shifting reactions to what he sees and his contradictory emotional entanglements. The account of his experience is revealed through sketches of the various women in his life, as well as through a vivid use of backgrounds and environments. A journey through the memory of Portugal's recent past, Oxala makes subtle but effective use of references to Portuguese history and literature, contrasting the optimism of the Revolution with the tradition of saudade (a kind of sadness linked to the acceptance of failure) which runs through all the arts.” Richard Pena, The Film Center, Chicago