La lettre (1999)

movie

(734)

Country: France, Portugal, Spain
Genres: Drama
Release: 1999-09-22
Director: Manoel de Oliveira
Writers: Manoel de Oliveira , Madame de La Fayette , Jacques Parsi
Language: French | Portuguese
Stars: Chiara Mastroianni , Pedro Abrunhosa , Antoine Chappey , Leonor Silveira , Françoise Fabian , Maria João Pires , Anny Romand , Luís Miguel Cintra , Stanislas Merhar , Claude Lévèque
Runtime: 107 min
Awards: 1 win & 4 nominations
AKA: Письмо (Russian Federation) , A Carta (Brazil) , クレーヴの奥方 (Japan) , A Carta (Portugal, Portuguese Republic) , The Letter (United Kingdom) , La lettera (Italy) , Scrisoarea (Romania) , The Letter , The Letter (United States of America) , A Princesa de Clèves (Portugal, Portuguese Republic) , La carta (Spain) , La princesse de Clèves (France, French Republic) , Το γράμμα (Greece) , La lettre (France, French Republic) , Der Brief (Germany) , List (Poland) , La lettre , Brevet (Norway)
Plot: A well-bred, lovely, spiritual, sad young woman marries an attentive physician who loves her. She feels affection but no love. Soon after, without design, she falls in love with Pedro Abrunhosa, a poet and performance artist. He also loves her. She keeps her distance from him, confessing her love to a friend who is a nun and, later, to her husband. Hunger for her love and jealousy consume him; she attends him as he wastes away. With his death, she can marry and express her passion, but what she does and how she explains herself, particularly to her cloistered friend, is at the heart of the film. Glimpses of convent life and of Abrunhosa on stage give contrast and mute comment.
IMDB:tt0158117