Belle Toujours is a 2006 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira

Manoel de Oliveira

Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira, GCSE is a Portuguese film director born in Cedofeita, Porto. He began working on films in the late 1920s, but did not receive international recognition until the early 1970s. Since the late 1980s he has been one of the most prolific working film directors and...

. It was Portugal's submission to the 80th Academy Awards

80th Academy Awards

The 80th Academy Awards ceremony honored the best films in 2007 and was broadcast from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California on ABC beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST/8:30 p.m. EST, February 24, 2008 . During the ceremony, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Academy Awards in 24...

 for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Plot

Severine and Henri are reunited decades after their earlier encounter in Luis Buñuel

Luis Buñuel

Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...

's 1967 film, Belle de Jour. Severine is reluctant to see Henri again, yet he is adamant about seeing her again. She resents that by seeing her former blackmailer she has to confront her past of adultery and prostitution. Nevertheless she is curious to know whether Henri revealed her secret life to her paralysed doctor husband as he was dying.

Reception

The film was generally well-received, it holds a 65% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

.

Philip French

Philip French

Philip French is a British film critic and former radio producer.French, the son of an insurance salesman, was educated at the direct grant Bristol Grammar School, read Law at Oxford University. and post graduate study in Journalism at Indiana University, Bloomington on a scholarship.He has been...

 writing in The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

described the film as "caviar to the general, but an elegant treat for cinephiles." Time Out said that the film offers "a deceptive, philosophical and cautionary meditation, not only on age, appetite, pleasure, betrayal, mendacity, revenge and disillusionment but also in idle curiosity."

Nominations

European Film Awards

• European Film Award for Best Actor
  European Film Award for Best Actor
  -1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:-External links:*...
  
   - Michel Piccoli

Golden Globes (Portugal)

• Best Film - Manoel de Oliviera

LUX Prize

Lux Prize

The European Parliament LUX Prize, introduced in 2007, is a prize given to a competing film by the European Parliament. It is named after the unit of illuminance, "lux", which is Latin for "light"...

2007

• Best Film

See also

• Cinema of Portugal
  Cinema of Portugal
  Portuguese cinema has a long tradition, reaching back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century. In the 1950s, Cinema Novo, sprang up as a movement concerned with showing realism in film, in the vein of Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave...
  
  
• List of submissions to the 80th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film