O Gebo E A Sombra (aka Gebo Et L'Ombre) (2012)

Living in dire poverty, an aging accountant (Michael Lonsdale) keeps his nagging wife (Claudia Cardinale) in the dark about the true nature of their missing son (Ricardo Trepa). But when he returns home, will she find out the truth? Based on the play by Raul Brandao and directed by Manoel De Oliveira. This was De Oliveira's final film and he was 103 years old when he directed it, surely one for the Guinness book. De Oliveira doesn't bother to hide the film's theatrical origins. He plops his stationary camera in front of the actors as they go through their paces in a one room set. The dramatic conflict comes from an exchange of ideas. The old man accepts poverty and misery as his position in life while his criminal son challenges the notion that man must accept his fate. Clearly the father is the noble one while the son is a thief but was it the father's acceptance of his poverty ridden fate the impetus for his son's criminal activities? Wasn't it the father's duty to improve his family's situation? Is he helping or hindering his wife by shielding her from the truth and enabling her life of illusion? The acting is good especially from Cardinale as the bitter wife and mother who may know more than she's letting on. With Jeanne Moreau in her penultimate film role, Leonor Silveira and Luis Miguel Cintra.