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Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira will turn 96 this Saturday (Dec. 11), but he's one of the hardest-working directors in cinema today. He's currently in post-production on a new film called O Quinto Imperio, which will be his sixth film of the decade. De Oliveira's fifth film, A Talking Picture, is finally getting a release in a few major cities and not a moment too soon.

The film is broken up into two parts. In the first, a history professor and her young daughter board a cruise that will take them from Portugal to India. Along the way, they stop at various "highlights" of Western civilization-Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, the Pyramids-with the mother explaining their significance. The film's second part takes place on the same cruise, but it features the captain (played by John Malkovich) entertaining three "grandes dames" (Catherine Deneuve, Stefania Sandrelli, and Irene Papas) at dinner. The four discuss their own histories as well as art, war, and, yes, civilization. Each character hails from a different country, so they're sometimes speaking languages the others can't understand (though everything is subtitled), which is certainly part of the point.

At times, A Talking Picture embodies its title, with the emphasis on talking. But de Oliveira has lost none of his spark, and his command of the film's formal elements is always true. The tour of the Mediterranean is gorgeous and punctuated with funny interactions between the girl and characters she and her mother meet. And the dinner conversation that dominates the second part is certainly engrossing if a bit stiff. But what really sets A Talking Picture above the usual arthouse fare is its stunning conclusion, with a freeze-frame ending that continues to prick my consciousness fifteen months after I saw it. A bravura response to 9/11, it has to be seen to be believed. 

J. Robert Parks  12/8/2004