Mysteries of Lisbon is one of the final films directed by Raul Ruiz, who took the 1854 novel of the same name by Camilo Castelo Branco and turned it into a film, which also ran as a mini-series. This is essentially a historical costume drama with a complicated story. Its flashbacks- within-flashbacks structure with multiple narrators, as well as its apparent aim of celebrating the invention of storytelling, is heavily reminding of Wojciech Has' 1965 film The Saragossa Manuscript, but it's not a rip-off or anything, just a film that, perhaps coincidentally, shares the unique shape its plot takes with Has' movie.Unfortunately, this movie is an utter chore to get through. I've thought a bit about why I just couldn't get into the goings-on here no matter how hard I tried (it's a bad sign enough that I actually have to try to get into a film), and I think it's because of the dull-as-dirt characters. It's truly amazing how none of the characters here feels like an actual, existing person. There is zero charisma from any of the actors, no stand-out performances, nothing worthy of attention in regards to how these people talk, behave and sound. And this is the hardest part to explain because you just have to feel it. It felt as if every person in this film was a wooden plank with different lines of dialogue scribbled on them. Nothing here felt organic, absolutely nothing.What makes things worse is that the way the plot is set up absolutely requires interesting or memorable characters in order to work at all. But I just couldn't care about any of them. And the plot is so complex that you have to pay attention literally all the time so that you don't miss something in the conversations. The so-called "golden rule" of cinema saying: "show, don't tell" is far from an universal guiding point and there are many films which are great despite breaking the "rule", but I think Mysteries of Lisbon is a great example of a film where applying the rule would've made for an engaging view. Absolutely everything here is conveyed through dialogue which is not only delivered by bland players, but also often unnecessarily prolonged by runabout stallings and even interruptions, such as in the scene where two characters exchange a conversation, only for one of them to repeatedly walk to his servants way in the background and return before continuing the dialogue, thus prolonging the scene for far longer than needed. Moments like these don't contribute tension or anything in this context, they're just absolutely baffling.I might also add that I'm not overly impressed with the story itself. Yes, it's very complicated, but I can't see why that's a feat. Anyone can write a long and convoluted story about human relations, but that simply isn't impressive unless you can make the movie feel vibrant, interesting or engaging. Mysteries of Lisbon fails to do so, and becomes a stunningly dull, un-cinematic soap opera with a disgustingly bloated run-time and nothing to back it up.The last thing to comment on is the filming style. Some reviewers like to compare the visual feel here to films like The Leopard (1963) and Barry Lyndon (1975), and honestly, I can't see why. Mysteries of Lisbon feels like a TV-production in comparison. Unlike the other two films, it doesn't really recreate the feel of the times found in old paintings (unless Portuguese painters were much more restrained). The camera movement and placement is quite bland for the most part. It does contain some unusual choices, like having the actors in close-up while the rest of the cast is placed in the far background, or some short surrealist touches here and there. But these additions honestly feel out of place. It's as if the movie tries to counter its generic outlook by occasionally forcing an unusually framed shot. Needless to say, it doesn't work.

A young man begins pinning a narrative while in the throes of death (which you will never fully comprehend until the end of the film), and in so doing tells the tale of his parents and all the people whose lives were affected by their swift and tragic romance. It is told in the way that such tales might be told by an old man, like a river of thought, one story leading into the next, all cohesive, yet all out of joint, puzzle pieces. Like a puzzle, it is up to you, as the viewer, to put together something of a landscape of lives. There is no deep meaning to the picture, it is beauty, people, life. Each piece is a piece of time, a moment, a lurid little story, and as you receive them all, you piece them each together according to the characters and how each one affects the other. Not every detail is accurate, because this is a story as it is told, and not as it is occurring. Some people seem much more noble, or much more insidious perhaps, than they really are. These are people through the eyes of the teller of the tale, which is than being told to you by the one who heard it. Two of the characters, Alberto and Dinnis, have multiple identities, and seem to be the angel and the devil of the story, though their first-known and most common names are ironic, as is life. In fact, the story is a searing indictment of religion, as one commits suicide by spending the rest of their lives in a convent or as a monk. The nobility is hypocritical, and to live is to cheat on each other, and honor is simply what others think of you; pure honor is naivety and the naive are viciously thrown about as pawns. As the teller of these tales begins to deteriorate, the series of stories becomes more and more disjointed. In one final scene, he is visiting his mother's grave and meets his grandfather, who has become an impoverished beggar. The two of them have a bit of conversation, but never fully realize who the other one is. They depart, and both go off to die alone, the grandfather, perversely blind to all parts of the story save his own (he's literally blind too, after actually attempting suicide the dishonorable way... you know, literally attempting suicide). This is essentially a Victorian painting come to life, and when you know all the details, you know little other than, well, life's a bitch... and only the good die young.

I rarely had out 1's, and this film, while an exercise in endurance, cramping, and boredom, is not entirely garbage. The costumes and set are fairly acceptable for a period drama. The actors seemed competent.But beyond that, almost everything else about the film is garbage, and frankly I emerged from the cinema quite angry at having wasted 5 hours of my life (including intermission which only prolonged the pain) on it.Part One (i.e the first two hours) isn't so bad. By itself, and with almost ANY ending tacked on, it would probably rate 7/10. If I can still remember, I think it was about an orphan boy being raised in a religious environment, who is attacked for being a bastard son, and his mother comes to visit him during his recovery. From there, the tale unfolds about his mother's life and how she was unable to marry the man she loved (both of them being second-born) and being forced to marry someone else while pregnant with him.But it gets more and more convoluted and meaningless as the film drags on. You really feel the weight of it on your eyelids as the second part opens, and I swear it is as if not one of the characters from the first part is recognizable in the second part for about two hours.Frankly, I stopped caring, and amused myself watching everyone else not caring either, as we checked our cell phones for the time: 5:00. 5:15. 5:30. Oh, God, when will it end?! 6:00. 6:15. 6:30. 6:45. 7:00! Freedom! We bolted for the nearest exit. (This was an art cinema crowd, by the way).I weighed the possibility of complaining to the manager about the film, and demanding a refund based solely on the film's worthlessness, something I have NEVER done in a cinema. But I decided I'd rather just be done with it, and I got out of there.I hope your experience is better than mine, but don't count on it. You've been warned.Don't believe the hype.

This series of short stories set in a world long gone is of course a costume drama, that may therefore deter some. They would be mistaken. It is slow, considered, colorful and in my view a good introduction to the world of our ancestors, who held opinions different from ours, did things in a different way, and got upset about the same issues, yet in a different clothing. Love that is thwarted, wise padres, noble families with poor youngest children and all of that in a heavily draped world - sometimes a bit much. And yet I may recommend that you sit down, do not hurry, leave your perhaps preconceived ideas at the entrance, and enjoy these so many hours of romantic stories.