A Talking Picture

Manoel de Oliveira's 2003 Portuguese film takes place on a cruise ship leaving Lisbon in July 2001. A history professor travels the Mediterranean ports with her young daughter: Marseille, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, Cairo. The mother tells the child about myth, history, religion and wars, and the film consists almost entirely of that telling and of conversations on board. The captain and three women passengers, played by John Malkovich, Catherine Deneuve, Stefania Sandrelli and Irene Papas, each speak their own language and understand one another, a direct representation of the image Europe has built of itself. The last two minutes demolish that image in a single stroke, and the film provoked hard argument on release. Oliveira was ninety-four at the time. Who it's for: viewers who like European art cinema and films that think about history and civilisation. Who it's not for: anyone who will find the slow pace and almost entirely conversational structure wearing, or who arrives unprepared for the harshness of the ending.