The Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, a centenarian, reaches to the world beyond for this story of mad love and self-consuming art, set in the rustic realms of the Douro wine country.

NEWYORKER: The Strange Case of Angelica

When the director Manoel de Oliveira wants to show that his elderly protagonist, Gilbert (Michel Piccoli), is an actor, he starts the film with fourteen minutes of a stage performance of a play by Ionesco (featuring Catherine Deneuve, in a cameo).

NEWYORKER: I'm Going Home

This recession-age fable, which revolves around love, work, family pressures, and hidebound traditions, is set in contemporary Lisbon but breathes the air of a dreamy, timeless romanticism one that befits the long view of life taken by its hundred-year-old director, Manoel de Oliveira.

NEWYORKER: Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl