“Begun in 1972 but completed and released only after the April 25 Revolution, Sweet Customs is generally considered to be the film that laid the foundations for the new Portuguese cinema. An insightful commentary on the ‘sweet customs' for which Portugal is famous, the film combines newsreels of the rise and fall of the dictator Salazar with staged scenes of the everyday life of a middle-class family. The conflicts of two daughters, each representing different generations, are shown in relationship to parents, grandmother, and maid; events of these characters' private lives are compared with the history of modern Portugal. Filmed in a distanced, deliberate style which reinforces the hidden formality of even the most personal relationships, Sweet Customs identifies a certain kind of gentle but forceful paternalism as the well-spring of Portuguese fascism.” Richard Peña