Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl

The film's sober formalism - long takes, exaggeratedly static compositions, claustrophobic interiors - is leavened with touches of Oliveira's characteristic comic perversity.

A curious, elliptical little film about people cocooned in their own romantic notions: at barely over an hour, the lethargic pace is easy to live with.

This is not one of Oliveira's most memorable works but it still provides a lesson in unobtrusive but pointed film-making.

Transcends the delicate intricacies of language by remaining fixed in its own sense of time while seeming effortlessly timeless.