Benilde or the Virgin Mother

Lovely writing but frustratingly listless.

Starts well, and the placement of the camera, and decisions about what to show and not show, are quite interesting, in what is an austere (and deliberately artificial) presentation. But unfortunately, the story goes nowhere, and the repetition of the same themes (the contest between a scientific and a religious viewpoint, mainly) as it slowly plays out eventually becomes a little tedious, so that in the end the whole thing becomes something of a disappointment. My first Manoel de Oliveira film.

sublime religious drama centred around a pregnant woman.