“Benilde, a withdrawn girl from a middle-class family, seemingly becomes pregnant, even though her family is sure that she has never been with a man. Benilde claims her condition derived from Divine intervention. Using an extremely literal transcription of the stage play, de Oliveira not only respects, but also emphasizes, a stagelike atmosphere; there is little camera movement, no expressive effects, and few close-ups. These are characters trapped within their living space, Portugal of the 1930s, and the framing organizes their surroundings like a proscenium arch.... Benilde, or the Virgin Mother, possibly de Oliveira's most controversial and difficult work, was in many ways designed as the inverse of The Past and the Present.... (T)he notion of theater dominates every aspect of the work. The film opens and closes with extraordinary rushes of camera movement, whirling about the wings of a soundstage, as de Oliveira reveals all the raw materials--actors, sets, costumes, equipment--in their natural states.” Richard Peña, Journal of the University Film and Video Assoc., Summer 1983