Mysteries of Lisbon
| Mysteries of Lisbon | |
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American poster
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| Directed by | Raúl Ruiz |
| Produced by | Paulo Branco |
| Written by | Carlos Saboga |
| Based on |
Os Mistérios de Lisboa by Camilo Castelo Branco |
| Starring |
Maria João Bastos Clotilde Hesme |
| Music by |
Jorge Arriagada Luís de Freitas Branco |
| Cinematography | André Szankowski |
| Edited by |
Carlos Madaleno Valeria Sarmiento |
| Distributed by | Clap - Produção de Filmes (Portugal) Alfama Films (France) |
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Release date
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Running time
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272 minutes |
| Country | Portugal France |
| Language | Portuguese French English |
| Budget | €2.5 million |
Mysteries of Lisbon (Portuguese: Mistérios de Lisboa) is a 2010 Portuguese costume drama film directed by Raúl Ruiz based on an 1854 novel of the same name by Camilo Castelo Branco. The movie is a notably long 272 minutes. It played as a miniseries in 60-minute installments in some countries. The film has won 9 awards and has been nominated 8 times.
Mysteries of Lisbon is rich with coincidences, plot twists, multiple narrators, disguises, and flashbacks-within-flashbacks. Every major character possesses at least two identities, and the story—which hopscotches around Europe in the early 19th and late 18th centuries—ropes in the Napoleonic Wars, pirates, a woman hellbent on avenging the death of her twin brother, and at least four different love triangles. Above all, Mysteries of Lisbon is about the mechanics of storytelling and imagination—in other words, how fiction works.
The film initially focuses on João (João Arrais), an orphan boy at a school run by the priest Father Dinis (Adriano Luz) during Portugal's Revolução Liberal. João becomes ill after being bullied by another boy who tells him he is a criminal’s child and awakens in a delirium to find a lovely woman watching over his bed. After recovering, Dinis takes João to see the woman who is indeed João’s mother, Countess Ângela de Lima (Maria João Bastos). For João's entire life, she had been imprisoned in her own home by her husband, the Count of Santa Bárbara (Albano Jerónimo). Dinis helps Ângela flee from her husband’s house when he’s away fighting the revolutionaries.
We finally learn João is the lovechild of Ângela and Pedro da Silva (João Baptista), a young nobleman without a fortune. Ângela's father, the Marquês de Montezelos (Rui Morrison), rejects Da Silva's marriage offer and hires the assassin "Knife Eater” (Ricardo Pereira) to kill him. Before dying, Da Silva manages to find refuge with Dinis and tell him his story. Dinis dons the guise of a gypsy and follows Ângela to the country where she is to give birth to João. Dinis intercepts Knife Eater who was also instructed to abduct and kill the baby. Dinis buys off Knife Eater and sees to the child's upbringing. Ângela is summarily married off by her father the Marquês to the Count.
In the present, the Count spreads rumors that Ângela is Dinis’ lover. Dinis tracks him down to get him to recant, but finds the Count on his deathbed, tended by his maid and lover Eugénia (Joana de Verona). Dinis again encounters Knife Eater who has returned after using Dinis’ money to seek ill-gotten fortunes in Brazil. Knife Eater now goes by the name Alberto de Magalhães, a rich gentleman who mocks the Count’s slander. When the Count dies, Ângela who never believed she was the Count’s proper wife refuses the inheritance and leaves João with Dinis to live in a convent.
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