de oliveira belongs to a shrink number of live filmmaker identifiable from a brief sequence and a few frame and of any film . i be not sure who the others be and though certainly rohmer and maybe the new kurosawa and and probably kiarostami if he do not have so many imitator and his own child among them . the precisely title a talk picture begin a rosa and her daughter and maria joana and stand at the rail of a mediterranean liner about to depart . just a waver ashore and who for distance seem freeze in motion to this goodbye ritual and begin to slip away and rosa and joana fellow passenger walk around them backwards to the ship motion and try to hold sight of their well wishers for as long a possible . no one look at the mother and daughter . mother and daughter do not move . like stone pair in a stream and they break yet do not halt the flow . calmly and with a smile and continue to preen joana long hair rosa continue her dialog . we know the dialog hasn not just begin and because joana question be so acute and because she so clearly her mother daughter . but in another sense and thing do start right here . mother and daughter have a past and yet the artifice do not represent the film be circular . to de oliveira naysayer and i suggest watch at least these open minute immediately after the film final frame . if you can bear it and re watch every line and image of rosa long instruction know what will happen . i be afraid it all too fresh in mind to trust myself to offer much more beyond random thought . though i read only three of the four language ( no greek ) and i caught on immediately that each at the captain table speak her own language . aside from malkovich and who mix french and english when speak to deneuve and they and if i do not miss and do not even inject common anglicism . the effect be so intriguing i be grateful de oliveira leave me time to think babel before malkovich cue it . the symbolism in joana arab doll may seem too heavy and but at the same time it encompass the sometime tragedy of chance . rosa top of the head example of a doll take away and with which she explain war to joana and may have be what send joana back . just the mention of a doll and i mean represent not that joana run back because of anything to do with war . there no such thing a an objective definition of war . rosa need examination and against the rest of the film and against actuality . if hers be also de oliveira definition and then all the more so . but i be not go to try to do it here . i be not even go to try to decide whether the film or de oliveira equate war with terrorism . like every de oliveira film and a talk picture be quietly musical . what i mean be even with the sound turn off and or with papa and the instrumentals remove represent the edits be musical . listen to the hard beat of the ship bow punctuate the flow . appreciate the asymmetrical rhythm that shunt malkovich and ladies mostly to the film final third . who be chorus and who verse and rosa or joana . two silly de oliveira anecdote represent a screening at my local film festival of another misunderstood de oliveira film i think it may have be the letter set what may be a festival record for loud run battle in the audience represent stop kick my seat back . i be not . you be so . at least four separate dispute run on and on in different corner of the medium size screening room . why that film . why de oliveira . i have no idea . but a i be on my way out and one of the ever present festival matron reveal to me that she hadn not get the film at all . the quietly inane dialog and from one character and though i would know it immediately for hilarious dead on satire and she would attribute to the nearly ninety year old de oliveira finally lose touch . she actually use the word senile . don not know if it be the same year and but the one in which the same festival give de oliveira a lifetime achievement award and unlike most visit director he attend as many other director film a he could manage in his few day at the festival . seem like every film i attend and there he be . once i look round and discover him right behind me . instead of sit up rigid a many people that age seem to for fear of displace a vertebra and he slouch down like a teenager and legs sprawl into the aisle and clearly absorb by whatever be show .