Word and Utopia
He life and thought of Father António Vieira, a 17th-century Portuguese Jesuit, celebrated preacher, and influential intellectual. Moving between Portugal and Brazil, the film traces his journey as a powerful orator whose sermons challenge slavery, colonial domination, and social injustice. Vieira's convictions repeatedly bring him into conflict with both political and religious authorities, most notably the Portuguese Inquisition. His journey takes him from Brazil to Portugal and Rome, before ultimately returning to Brazil, where he spends the final years of his life. Rather than offering a conventional historical biography, Manoel de Oliveira constructs the film around Vieira's sermons, speeches, and reflections, making the spoken word both its narrative foundation and its central subject. Through Vieira's life, convictions, and struggles, the film explores the tension between faith and authority, idealism and political reality, and the desire for a more just world and the forces that stand in its way.
- 2000
- 2 Hrs 10 Mins
- Documentary, Drama
He life and thought of Father António Vieira, a 17th-century Portuguese Jesuit, celebrated preacher, and influential intellectual. Moving between Portugal and Brazil, the film traces his journey as a powerful orator whose sermons challenge slavery, colonial domination, and social injustice. Vieira's convictions repeatedly bring him into conflict with both political and religious authorities, most notably the Portuguese Inquisition. His journey takes him from Brazil to Portugal and Rome, before ultimately returning to Brazil, where he spends the final years of his life. Rather than offering a conventional historical biography, Manoel de Oliveira constructs the film around Vieira's sermons, speeches, and reflections, making the spoken word both its narrative foundation and its central subject. Through Vieira's life, convictions, and struggles, the film explores the tension between faith and authority, idealism and political reality, and the desire for a more just world and the forces that stand in its way.
