Day of Despair

The film is about the last days of Camilo Castelo Branco. Camilo was a Portuguese writer. He lived in the nineteenth century. He wrote novels for many years. In his old age his eyes gave him trouble. The illness advanced over time. One morning he finds that he cannot see. Writing is no longer possible. That leaves him without recourse. His life comes to its end there. The film draws on the writer’s own letters. The account moves in a plain arrangement. In places the actors speak straight to the camera. Mário Barroso and Teresa Madruga take the leads, with Luís Miguel Cintra also in the cast, in Manoel de Oliveira’s Portuguese and French coproduction of 1992.