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Mysteries of Lisbon (PG)

Drama, Mystery

Follows a jealous countess, a wealthy businessman, and a young orphaned boy across Portugal, France, Italy and Brazil where they connect with a variety of mysterious individuals.


The critical consensus

This is spellbinding cinema, handled with flair by late Chilean director Raúl Ruiz.

***(*)(*)Tom Dawson, Total Film, 28/11/2011

Storytelling of breathtaking scale and grandeur, even if the complex plotting may twist your synapses along the way.

****(*)David Parkinson, Empire Online, 05/12/2011

In a last great burst of creativity, he gave us Mysteries of Lisbon, and here it is – all 4½ hours of it – reminding us of Ruiz’s gifts with light and colour, his ambitions with narrative, his sometimes interesting, sometimes frustrating remoteness, and his preoccupations with myth, the avant-garde and 19th-century classicism, all at once.

***(*)(*)Tim Robey, The Telegraph, 08/12/2011

For those with open minds, the cinema of Ruiz offers enormous and unique pleasure.

*****Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 08/12/2011

Four-and-a-half hours of ambiguous, interweaving fictions fly by in the expert hands of veteran director Raúl Ruiz.

Philip French, The Observer, 11/12/2011

Mysteries of Lisbon is a subtle delirium, and a magnificent late magnum opus from a director who was one of a kind.

Jonathan Romney, The Independent on Sunday, 11/12/2011

A gloriously realised piece, but it is, be warned, a long haul. Not to worry: those good folk at the Filmhouse have scheduled a 15 minute interval.

***(*)(*)Alison Rowat, The Herald, 29/12/2011

Compelling for a while, in the end this narrative jigsaw puzzle doesn’t quite justify the time commitment required to make sense of it.

***(*)(*)Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman, 29/12/2011

Mysteries of Lisbon (PG)

Where and when?

Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Monday January 2, 2012, until Thursday January 5, 2012. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com

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