Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2010
Mysteries of Lisbon
Buy Mysteries of Lisbon now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Mysteries of Lisbon' is a 2010 Portuguese period drama film directed by Chilean filmmaker Ral Ruiz based on an 1854 novel of the same name by Camilo Castelo Branco. The movie's running time is 272 minutes. It played as a miniseries in 60-minute installments in some countries. The film has won nine awards and been nominated for eight more.
The plot of 'Mysteries of Lisbon' is rich with coincidences, plot twists, multiple narrators, disguises, and flashbacks-within-flashbacks. Every major character possesses at least two identities, and the storywhich hopscotches around Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuriesis set against the Napoleonic Wars and includes pirates, a woman hellbent on avenging the death of her twin brother, and at least four different love triangles. Above all, 'Mysteries of Lisbon' is about the mechanics of storytelling and imagination.
Plot
The film initially focuses on Joo (Joo Arrais), an orphan boy at a school run by the priest Father Dinis (Adriano Luz) during Portugal's Revoluo Liberal. Joo becomes ill after being bullied by another boy who tells him he is a criminal's child. He awakens in a delirium to find a lovely woman watching over his bed. After Joo recovers, Dinis takes him to see the woman who is indeed his mother, Countess ngela de Lima (Maria Joo Bastos). For Joo's entire life, she has been imprisoned in her own home by her husband, the Count of Santa Brbara (Albano Jernimo). Dinis helps ngela flee from her husband's house when he's away fighting the revolutionaries.
We finally learn Joo is the love child of ngela and Pedro da Silva (Joo Baptista), a young nobleman without a fortune. ngela's own father, the Marquis of Montezelos (Rui Morrison), rejects da Silva's offer of marriage, and even hires the assassin "Knife Eater" (Ricardo Pereira) to kill the impoverished young nobleman. Before dying, da Silva manages to find refuge with Dinis, and tells him his story. Dinis dons the guise of a gypsy and follows ngela into the country where she gives birth to Joo. Dinis also intercepts and buys off Knife Eater, who has orders from ngela's father to abduct and kill the baby. Dinis sees to the baby Joo's upbringing, and ngela is summarily married off to the Count of Santa Brbara by her father.
In the present, the Count of Santa Brbara spreads rumors that ngela is Dinis's lover. When Dinis tracks him down to make him recant, he finds the Count on his deathbed, tended by his maid and lover Eugnia (Joana de Verona). Dinis also encounters Knife Eater again, who has returned from Brazil after using Dinis's money to seek an ill-gotten fortune there. Knife Eater now goes by the name Alberto de Magalhes, and mocks the Count's slander. When the Count finally dies, ngela, who never believed she was the Count's proper wife, refuses the inheritance. She leaves Joo with Dinis, and goes to live in a convent.
Dinis is himself the son of an illicit aristocratic affair. He finds this out when Friar Baltasar da Encarnao (Jos Manuel Mendes), the priest who gave the Count his last rites, recounts his own story. In his past, Friar Baltasar was lvaro de Albuquerque (Carloto Cotta), who seduced and fell for the Countess de Vizo (Maria Joo Pinho), the wife of an acquaintance. They ran off together to Italy where she died while giving birth to Dinis. lvaro then gave young Dinis to a friend to raise, who then gave Dinis to someone else, and so on, until finally Dinis is being raised by a French nobleman. The young Dinis fights for Napoleon's army in Spain under the name of Sebastio de Melo.
De Magalhes (the former Knife Eater) is now happily married to Eugnia, the former mistress of the Count of Santa Brbara. However, in the past, he once paid a widowed French duchess, Elisa de Montfort (Clotilde Hesme) for sex, and Elisa tries to disrupt his marriage by returning his money. When Dinis tells Elisa the story of her mother's death, de Magalhes bursts in. He nearly strangles Elisa to death after she threatens to shoot him, but Dinis talks him out of the murder. Elisa is the daughter of Dinis's own tragic love, Blanche de Montfort (La Seydoux), who married Dinis's comrade-in-arms Benot (Julien Alluguette), but took a lover, Lacroze (Melvil Poupaud). Lacroze was a man who was saved by Benot and Dinis from a roadside firing squad during the war. Overcome with jealousy, Benot sabotages Blanche's relationship with Lacroze, causing him to commit suicide, and ultimately kills Blanche in a fire.
Joo grows into a young poet (Jos Afonso Pimentel) and encounters Elisa, who vaguely resembles his mother. When he falls for her, Elisa enlists his aid to avenge her honor by challenging de Magalhes to a duel. De Magalhes complies but gets Joo to call it off by revealing the role he played in his past, including the accidental death of Elisa's twin brother, Arthur, after being sent by Elisa to kill de Magalhes. Joo leaves Portugal for a far-off colony, falls ill, and dictates his memoirs from his own supposed deathbed. His final vision is his memory of his mother looking over him when he lay sick as a child.
Cast
*Adriano Luz as Father Dinis & Sabino Cabra & Sebastio de Melo
*Maria Joo Bastos as ngela de Lima
*Ricardo Pereira as Alberto de Magalhes & Knife-Eater (Come-Facas)
*Clotilde Hesme as Elisa de Montfort
*Afonso Pimentel as Pedro da Silva
*Joo Lus Arrais as Pedro da Silva Child
*Joo Villas-Boas as Craido
*Albano Jernimo as Count of Santa Brbara
*Joo Baptista as D. Pedro da Silva
*Martin Loizillon as Sebastio de Melo
*Julien Alluguette as Benot de Montfort
*Rui Morisson as Marquis of Montezelos
*Joana de Verona as Eugnia
*Carloto Cotta as D. lvaro de Albuquerque
*Maria Joo Pinho as Countess of Viso
*Jos Manuel Mendes as Friar Baltasar da Encarnao
*La Seydoux as Blanche de Montfort
*Melvil Poupaud as Ernest Lacroze
*Malik Zidi as Armagnac
Episode guide
'Mysteries of Lisbon' was a series of six episodes that aired on television in several countries before being compiled into a feature film in 2010.
'Episode 1:' At a boys' college run by Father Dinis, young orphan Joao obsesses about his parentage. When he suddenly falls ill, his mother visits him by his bedside and gives him a miniature theatre diorama as a gift. It soon becomes clear that she is a noblewoman, who has managed to sneak out of the house where she is kept locked up by her tempestuous husband the Count of Santa Barbara.
'Episode 2:' The strange former life of Father Dinis is revealed, as well as how he saved Joao from death at the hands of the same man who shot his father. Meanwhile, as the Count of Santa Barbara spreads the lie that Angela left him heartbroken for another man, a mysterious merchant steps forward to defend her honour and halt the gossip spreading through the salons of Lisbon's high society.
'Episode 3:' A monk sheds light on the mysterious past of Father Dinis, who is shocked by the true identity of merchant Alberto de Magalhaes.
'Episode 4:' Having discovered that Antonia is not the real sister of Father Dinis, Angela searches for the truth behind her relationship with the priest. As the past unravels, the dark history of her mother comes to light, and the string of misfortunes that plagued her for the rest of her life.
'Episode 5:' Father Dinis's complicated history is further unravelled as Elisa de Montfort, a woman with an unknown connection to Magalhaes, arrives at the merchant's home to repay a mystery debt. Recognising her as she waits to speak to Alberto's new wife, the priest beckons of her to talk. Flashbacks reveals his extraordinary link to the young visitor, his own story of jealousy and lost love, and the fate that befell Elisa's mother at the hands of one of his closest friends.
'Episode 6:' Now a student and known as Pedro da Silva, Joao falls into the destructive path of Elisa de Montfort, the daughter of Father Dinis's former lover. She convinces him that the only obstacle to their future together is Alberto de Magalhaes, so he challenges the merchant to a duel.
Reception
Rottentomatoes.com reports 86% approval among 57 film critics of 'Mysteries of Lisbon'.[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mysteries_of_lisbon/ Rotten Tomatoes] The film holds an 82/100 on Metacritic.[http://www.metacritic.com/movie/mysteries-of-lisbon/critic-reviews Metacritic]
Accolades
Won
*So Paulo International Film Festival 2010:**Critics Award - Best Film
*San Sebastin International Film Festival 2010:
**Silver Seashell - Best Director: Ral Ruiz
*Louis Delluc Prize 2010:
**Louis Delluc Prize for Best Film
*Portuguese Golden Globes 2011:
**Golden Globe - Best Film
**Golden Globe - Best Actor: Adriano Luz
**Golden Globe - Best Actress: Maria Joo Bastos
*Satellite Awards 2011:
**Satellite Award for Best Foreign Language Film
*Toronto Film Critics Association Awards 2011:
**Best Foreign Language Film
*Athens Panorama of European Cinema 2011:
**Best Film
Nominated
*San Sebastin International Film Festival 2010:**Golden Seashell - Best Film
*Portuguese Golden Globes 2011:
**Golden Globe - Best Actor: Ricardo Pereira (actor)
**Golden Globe - Best Actress: Joana de Verona
*London Film Critics Circle Awards 2011:
**Foreign Language Film of the Year
*National Society of Film Critics Awards 2011:
**Best Foreign Language Film (2nd place)
*Satellite Awards 2011:
**Satellite Award for Best Art Direction and Production Design: Isabel Branco
**Satellite Award for Best Costume Design: Isabel Branco
*Fotogramas de Plata 2012:
**Best Foreign Film
References
Further reading
* Michael Goddard (2013), 'The Cinema of Ral Ruiz: Impossible Cartographies', Wallflower Press, pp. 162165.
* Giuseppina Mecchia (2018), [https://search.proquest.com/docview/2177204053?rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo "Rendering the Nineteenth Century: Narrative Time and Hegemonic Struggles in Ral Ruiz's 'Mysteries of Lisbon'"], 'Diacritics' Vol. 46, Issue 1, pp. 8097.
* Lcia Nagib (2017), [http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/70374/ "'Mysteries of Lisbon' and intermedial history-telling"], 'Aniki: Portuguese Journal of the Moving Image', 4 (2), pp. 375391.
* Julia Vassilieva (2017), [https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2017.1386699 "Beyond Poetics: Ral Ruiz's Rethinking of Narrative"], 'Critical Arts' 31 (5), pp. 186201.
Buy Mysteries of Lisbon now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 2010