No Oliveira film occupies so many different registers: contemporary war-film realism; grand-scale reconstructions of historic battles, reminiscent of Laurence Olivier’s Agincourt in Henry V; and the pantomime-like evocation of Camoëns’ Island of Love, mythology decked out in lavish baroque tableaux vivants, with the nymph Thetis descending from the skies in a conch shell drawn by swans.
Jonathan Romney
December 01, 2008