Amamos esta película, pero nos entristece presentarla pues es la última obra del fabulista y exiliado chileno Raúl Ruiz y con ella se cierra una carrera siempre en expansión y con giros inesperados. Aquí, Ruiz regresa a su tierra natal para crear una oda onírica y lúdica a la vejez y la cinefilia.
A Borgesian matryoshka doll of storytelling, Mysteries of Lisbon is Chilean maestro Raúl Ruiz’s magnum opus—a sumptuous period epic in six parts. Playing in its rarely screened extended version, this sweeping melodramatic saga is Dickensian in scope and magisterial in novelistic ambition.
Vendettas are executed, passions bloom and wane, and all roads lead back to Pedro in this diaphanous concluding episode of Raúl Ruiz’s elaborate masterwork. As its final secrets are revealed, Mysteries of Lisbon finds the ephemeral sum of a life in the stories we tell ourselves and each other.
All the world’s a stage for young Pedro, who underlines the theatricality of Raúl Ruiz’s lavish epic with the cutout figures in his puppet theater. Secrets beget revelations in this riveting second episode, as wicked whispers spread like wildfire through the drawing rooms of Portuguese society.
Mysteries of Lisbon’s myriad flashbacks gain a new perspective, as Father Dinis moves to the center of Raúl Ruiz’s narrative labyrinth. Following his arrival in Episode 2, the series finds its villain in the cruel Alberto de Magalhaes, while young love beats an inexorable path toward tragedy.
