No, or the Vain Glory of Command

This is one of those movies that had potential to be good but was ruined by a poor plot, bad acting and directing flaws. Like so many others in Oliveira's career. Through stories from Portugal's military history and mithology, told by an officer in the middle of the Colonial War, the movie attempts to show a reflection over the role of wars and empires and, by extension, Portugal itself, as a country that once held an empire and is at the time sending its youth to die in Africa in a desperate attempt to keep possession over the colonies. It is an interesting setup but not only is the acting mediocre or even very bad, the way the story is told makes it uninteresting and boring. The scenes of war (as far as I know, the only scenes of war in a Portuguese movie) are so poorly done it seemed I was watching one of those historical re-enactments made by amateurs, where they just dance around hitting swords and randomly dying. The mythological scene, taken from the Lusíadas, is supposed to be an erotic dream but, as demonstrated in "Vale Abraão", Oliveira was really terrible at erotica. As for the scenes in the present, it's just badly acted cheap philosophy. I can't recommend the movie to anyone. As a historical movie, it does not hold as it mixes mythology with history and has little connection with historical facts. As a war movie, it attempts to be profound but fails to the point of becoming comical. I only give it more than 1* because occasionally Oliveira made some beautifully filmed scenes.