Critics reviews

Equally rare and not to be missed is the charming and hilarious Love Torn in a Dream (2000), something of a compendium of Ruiz's work, but more a larger-than-life analogue of his teeming brain. A preface informs us that nine tales will unfold—set in the Portugal of prior centuries and the present, all richly and colorfully mounted.

This is among the most amusing, vertiginous, insolent, outlandish, delirious films imaginable. And perhaps, as well, the freest that Ruiz has ever made. It's the kind of project where he's absolutely free in his actions, conceiving and taking control of the film's totality; in the exercise of this paroxysmic energy he pushes the exercise of his boundless creative imagination to its zenith, unshackled in any respect by the dominant codes.