O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra

'O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra' (Adventure, Portugal, 2007, color, 103 minutes, directed by Jorge Paixão da Costa) is the picturing of one of the most well-known Portuguese books from the 19th century. It is a film which provokes conventions in order to criticize the behaviors of romantic epoch from the 19th century Portuguese society. Two writers, Eça de Queiroz and Ramalho Ortigão, made in the summer of 1870 a great police novel for the ’Diário de Notícias’.
The crime described in the book becomes reality on the streets of Lisbon. The love is more powerful than the tradition, the intrigue is beyond evidences and everything happens fast, like in a vertigo game. ‘Is the fiction that they created based on a real case?’ This is the question which sustains the conflict. Ivo Canelas, who played Eça de Queiroz, won ‘The best male Actor’ Prize in 2008 at the Portuguese Golden Globes.

<back>