Writer
A acção decorre em Lisboa, numa pensão da nova Avenida Amirante Reis cerca de 1918-26, expondo - através duma encenação de valores cromáticos - os amores duma mulher de passado misterioso e futuro incerto. Dona Elvira promete arranjar emprego a José através da típica cunha portuguesa. Em paralelo, revelam-se aspectos bizarros e figuras excêntricas da vida citadina, incluindo a tragédia da actriz Maria Alves - assassinada pelo próprio empresário - já recriada por Reinaldo Ferreira, em O Táxi Nº 9297 (1927)
Screenplay
In 1974, not long after the death of Portuguese dictator Salazar, who had ruled Portugal from the early '30s to the late '60s, a group of disgruntled Army officers held a coup. They were even more disgruntled when they realized how the coup was being manipulated by leftist officers to instigate genuine elections and establish a constitution for the first time in Portuguese history. Though their intent was to form a radical socialist state, circumstances prevented this, and a genuine parliamentary democracy emerged. This film explores the circumstances of a right-wing businessman during those times. The man is an old-fashioned authoritarian, whose attentiveness to the needs of his mistress, wife and son is crude where it exists at all.
