Clap Filmes

Raul Ruiz's masterful adaptation of the eponymous nineteenth-century Portuguese novel. The core story centers on Joao, the bastard child of an ill-fated romance between two members of the aristocracy who are forbidden to marry, and his quest to discover the truth of his parentage. But this is just the start of an engrossing tale that follows a multitude of characters whose fates conjoin, separate and then rejoin again over three decades in Portugal,...

In 1810 Lisbon quakes before the impending invasion of Napoleonic forces led by Marshal Massena. Portuguese and English troops, led by the Duke of Wellington, rebuff the French, but at a terrible cost endured by peasants and aristocrats alike.