It's an engrossing pic that speaks to our hearts and minds, as it leaves us with an unsettling feeling about both the past and present.

| Original Score: A- | Nov 5, 2010

Though Oliveira's stylistic approach may be more relaxed and laid back in tune with seasoned years, his keen and cutting insights point to a mind on fire, as if on mental Viagra.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2007

Only someone in his golden years could have made something as profound and as devastating as A Talking Picture, and only Oliveira could have made it as good as this.

| May 26, 2006

A veteran filmmaker's moment of reflection and didacticism, and one supposes he's earned it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 27, 2005

Talking is about all that happens here.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2005

Oliveira establishes a sense of timelessness only to catch his audience up short with a film that ultimately could scarcely be a more timely comment on the world in which we live.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 18, 2005

Structured like a chatty play in three acts.

| Mar 17, 2005

Extremely slow and won't be for those with no appetite for lengthy, self-serious monologues, but it also has a sharp, personal edge to it.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 11, 2005

Not only is this approach boring but also it is an artificial contrivance that leaves little for the actors to do but regurgitate facts in an encyclopedic way.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 10, 2005

Feels like cinema's grand old man is leaving us a legacy with grace and compassion.

| Original Score: B | Mar 10, 2005

A Talking Picture might be an apt title, but it does not mean that it is automatically a picture worth contemplating.

| Mar 3, 2005

A potent and troubling meditation on the state of Western society.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 21, 2005

A thoughtful, provocative effort that makes up for its narrative failings with its astute philosophical musings.

Full Review | Dec 27, 2004

A devastatingly simple portrait of the ways in which we lull ourselves into believing that knowledge, academic or worldly, is our inviolate defense against annihilation.

| Dec 19, 2004

This intermittently interesting symbolic tour through European history once again places ideas over aesthetics and technique.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 10, 2004

The freeze-frame finale is a stunner.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 10, 2004

The Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira again shows himself to be a master of the medium with this sharply cut gem of a film about a mother and daughter sailing the Mediterranean.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 10, 2004

This is a lovely, lively, timely treat for the eyes and mind.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 9, 2004

A film destined to divide Manoel de Oliveira's fans but also to win him new ones.

| Dec 9, 2004

A film which, with rare eloquence, speaks to our hearts and minds about modern quandaries and eternal truths.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 9, 2004