Mysteries of Lisbon

POLITE APPLAUSE Drama. Directed by Raúl Ruiz. With Adriano Luz, Maria João Bastos, Ricardo Pereira, Afonso Pimentel, João Luis Arrais, Clotilde Hesme and Albano Jerónimo. In Portuguese, French and English with English subtitles. (Not rated. 257 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

"Mysteries of Lisbon" is a sprawling 19th century novel filtered through the mind of a trickster filmmaker, the late Raúl Ruiz, who both delights in and subverts his wildly complex and melodramatic source material.

Based on a three-volume novel by the Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco, the film tells, with invention and wit, a Dickensian tale of an orphan (João Luis Arrais as a boy and Afonso Pimentel as an adult) who learns the story of his origins with much help from a kindly and enigmatic priest (Adriano Luz).

All this is told at leisure - the film, which has an intermission, runs 257 minutes, actually trimmed back from its original six-hour length (it was made as a serial for European TV).

The Chilean-born, Paris-based director died in August at age 70 after making more than 100 films. He's probably best known for his 1999 Proust adaptation, "Time Regained."

A summary can't convey "Mysteries of Lisbon's" bounty - the welter of characters and themes, subplots and side stories, reversals and revelations, commentary and observation. In Ruiz's hands, it all becomes a serene, painterly dream punctuated with slyly surreal touches.

As the orphan learns his own story, we are introduced to enough intriguing characters to fuel a soap opera for years: the boy's long-suffering, aristocratic mother (Maria João Bastos) and her monstrous husband (Albano Jerónimo); a spurned lover (Clotilde Hesme) endlessly pursuing vengeance; and a low-grade assassin called the Knife-Eater (Ricardo Pereira) who eventually gets rich via the slave trade and piracy. Identities are concealed and revealed as their stories overlap and intertwine.

Of all the film's mysteries, perhaps the greatest is that of the priest, Father Dinis, who's had a most unexpected past (and don't jump to easy conclusions).

We are told at the film's beginning that we are about to see a "diary of suffering," and it is that, but the effect, after four-and-a-quarter hours, is exhilarating.