Sempre Bela

This film by Manoel de Oliveira shows his great knowledge of Buñuel's work but also his admiration of the original Belle de Jour which explains why he would want to return to that story so many years later. My first reaction was that someone who had not seen Belle de Jours would probably not enjoy this. It is in the cinema what Wide Sargasso Sea is in literature, a kind of recreation of a known theme. De Oliveira builds up an amazing tension round what is finally going to happen between the two characters and that makes the meal at the end an example of suspense based not on action so typical of the thriller, but rather on the word, which in Oliveira's films acquires the stature of protagonist. A great movie!