“This dramatic and disturbing recreation of the Passion Play...is transformed by de Oliveira from a mummers' play by willing amateurs into a strange, hieratic rite (both religious and erotic), far removed from the commercial representations of other cinemas...mixing Western and Eastern modes in a way never shown before” (John Gillett, National Film Theatre, London). “De Oliveira himself seems to consider O Acto da Primavera (literally the ‘Act of Spring'...) a real turning point in his career, since for the first time he felt completely free to abandon his documentary approach and concentrate instead on ‘representing' an event. In this record of a stylized recreation of Christ's trial, passion, and death, performed by the inhabitants of the village of Curalha, de Oliveira exposes with surgical precision the bizarre, erotic flavor of the ritual, the strange lust for the violence promised at the event's conclusion. Sweeping, graceful camera movements pace the action. For the first time in de Oliveira's work one senses his presence outside the frame, a figure exerting his own control and personal vision on the proceedings” (Richard Peña, Journal of the University Film and Video Assoc., Summer 1983).