“A tribute to the family of Eca de Quiroz, the author of this story. Adapted and updated by Manoel de Oliveira. " The lines that open Eccentricities seem like a basic informatory piece of text at first but in retrospect they are absolutely priceless. The aforementioned update is only surficial, more accurately environmental, and at its core the film is even more ancient than my grand-grand-grand-grand-father (RIP). This immense difference provides a vast ground for MdO to run over with what he made an entire oeuvre of; the dialectics between the different times, between the living and the dead, between expression of what we assume to be reality and the reality itself. What he excavates out of them here? Numerous biting and satirical touches that will keep your mind busy for quiet sometimes. This is one of the very few movies I can think of right now that is allowed to make a reference about the colonialism of the past and the present, (going to Cape d’Or to make money! The process only needs a plane now, back then it demanded much more) to cast a momentary glance and pass over it in a single moment like nothing has happened, like nothing is happening, as if all the exploitation means nothing. It doesn’t make the film irresponsible because the joke is on us. It’s even more ironic that the people in the film – we too – read about the past (the sneaky thing is that they read Eca de Quiroz so basically they are reading about themselves) then call it profound and clap. Film’s lead character is not the only careless dreamer here. There’s much more here, actually the film’s density is one of the main reasons it’s so impressive, but as I put it earlier I think Eccentricities can be called de Oliveira’s ultimate statement on bridging different worlds between different people, different times, different artistic mediums and even different political stances; pointing out how we knowingly or unknowingly are intensifying the differences. If the film’s ending seems so old-fashioned it comes off as two hundreds times as shocking as the entirety of the next big gorefest the reason is not that de Olivera is an inept filmmaker, it’s because some of these dialogues have reached the critical mass.