Notes on…

The Strange Case of Angelica(2010)

Dir. Directed by Manoel de Oliveira

Manoel de Oliveria made this when he was 102, yet it wasn't even his last film.


In a frightening sequence toward the end of the film, the young man desperately follows a tractor smashing the rocks behind it, snapping furious snapshots of the most purely physical material he knows, only to find that the hard, stony soil remains as elusive as his phantom lover.

Haden Guest (Film Comment)


If Angelica is the essence of photography, Isaac is the medium’s humble servant. He even lives in a sort of camera—his rented room is a darkened box, illuminated only by a window overlooking the Douro, the subject of Oliveira’s first movie

J. Hoberman (Artforum)

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A photographer, Isaac is asked by hotel owners to take portraits of their recently deceased daughter Angélica. When he looks at her through the lens of his camera, she appears to come back to life just for him. He instantly falls in love with her. From that moment, he will be haunted by Angélica day and night.