Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl

"The cinema's most senior filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira, brings us this deceptively simple, perfectly set gem. Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl is based on a short story by José Maria de Eça de Queiroz, the renowned nineteenth-century author often regarded as the Flaubert of Portugal. While on a train bound for the Algarve, a beleaguered man (de Oliveira's grandson and regular lead, Ricardo Trêpa) recounts his troubles to his sympathetic neighbour (Leonor Silveira). He is Macário, a former Lisbon accountant who worked for his uncle's shop and fell madly in love with Luisa (Catarina Wallenstein), the titular blond-haired beauty who lived across the street from his office window. Every day he would spy on her as she coquettishly waved her.