Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira should be listed in the dictionary under "antiaging" — at 100 years old, he has released the wonderfully titled "Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl" (released in Japan as "Blonde Shojo wa Kagekini Utsukushiku"), which is packed with romantic loveliness and balanced by a tight, precise editing style.
In every aspect, the film shows the sensibilities of someone half Oliveira's age, and an erotic longing rarely savored in today's cinema is drawn here with youthful ardor. Yet "Eccentricities" bears the hallmarks of maturity and experience — the film is a showcase for Oliveira's acute observational powers and a temperament akin to fine, aged wine.
This is a love story, but that love is reminiscent of something Oscar Wilde or Honore de Balzac described — it nearly always breaks at least one lover's heart, and it's never meant to be consummated. Certainly, the protagonist, Macario (Ricardo Trepa, Oliveira's grandson), doesn't seem interested in making love so much as pondering upon and obsessing over Luisa (Catarina Wallenstein), whose comely figure he sees in the window across the courtyard. Macario works as the accountant at his uncle's boutique,and from his desk he can see the alluring Luisa, waving a Chinese fan and leaning slightly over a window sill with aristocratic flair and ennui.