Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Manoel de Oliveira
Cast
Pilar López de Ayala,
Leonor Silveira,
Filipe Vargas,
Ricardo Trêpa,
Paulo Matos,
Luís Miguel Cintra
Genre
Drama
Late one night, Isaac is summoned by a wealthy family to take the last photograph of a young bride, Angelica, who mysteriously passed away. Arriving at their estate, Isaac is struck by Angelica's beauty, but when he looks through his lens, something strange happens - the young woman appears to come to life. From that moment, Isaac will be haunted by Angelica day and night.
Time Out by Keith Uhlich
Its stunningly composed images showing how Isaac is himself something of a ghost-given to staring off into the distance, being condescended to by those around him, a man perpetually outside the times. What he needs is to take that one extra step toward his spectral siren; the scene in which he does so might be one of the most exhilarating visions of death's sweet embrace ever filmed.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
This fresh, highly original film, inspired by Oliveira's substantially different, never-filmed 1952 script, has been made with the greatest of ease and simplicity and with drollery and wit, yet its underlying impact is profoundly spiritual.
Boston Globe by Wesley Morris
"Angélica" feels most like the film that argues Oliveira is this close to the beyond without ever bothering to knock first at death's door.
San Francisco Chronicle by Walter Addiego
A captivating mix of formality, ambiguity and offbeat humor. On the surface a simple fable, it's actually much more.
The A.V. Club by Noel Murray
Too shaggy at times, with digressions into science and history that come out flat and awkward. But there's a sweet, unshakeable poetry in the main idea of the film.
Village Voice by Nick Pinkerton
de Oliveira's film is a musical of a sort, its quietude occasionally lifted by work songs or chorales.
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The charm of The Strange Case of Angelica lies in the way it balances this mysticism with a thoroughly secular sense of the business of everyday life.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
An uneven but intriguing piece of whimsy that veers from powerfully symbolic cinematography into self parody.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Kate Taylor
An uneven but intriguing piece of whimsy that veers from powerfully symbolic cinematography into self parody.
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