Francisca
1981 Foreign Not Rated 167 Minutes
In Theaters | N/A | |||
On 4K UHD | Not Available | |||
On Blu-ray | April 6, 2021 | |||
On DVD | April 6, 2021 |
Principal Cast
Director
A portrait of an obsessive love affair, Manoel de Oliveira's Francisca is based on a novel by Agustina Bessa-Luís, whose work he'd later adapt twice more. The book's re-telling of a troubled passage in real-life author Camilo Castelo Branco life - his friend José Augusto embarked on a perverse game of marital cat and mouse with Francisca, the woman the novelist loved - led Oliveira to new levels of stylistic and formal imagination. (It helped that his wife, a distant relative of the historical Francisca, gave him access to a cache of the woman's letters.) With its elaborate title cards, its abundance of shots in which the action is oriented directly toward the camera, its gloomy interiors, and its show-stopping gala set-pieces, Francisca is an exacting, sumptuous and utterly inimitable cinematic experience, and one of Oliveira's crowning achievements.
Not Rated.
Presented in Portuguese.
Released by Grasshopper Film. See more credits.