"You can feel, while watching "Quinze Pontos na Alma", the spirit and shades of Visconti and Hitchcock. Mankiewicz and Sirk also wander about. The list could go on -- Sirk, Welles -- as much as any film buff would like. There are many films, mostly American, made "in the fashion of". That is absolutely not what Vicente Alves do Ó has done. You realise that this passion for film came first, informing in the most genuine way, his wish, especially his desire, to make films. Vicente Alves do Ó is not a modern director trying to imitate the typical mystery of 1940's Hollywood. He believes he is actually there. In that sense, he becomes the star of the film, as much or even more than the prodigious Rita Loureiro, heiress of so many frigid Hitchcockian heroínes. Watching Vicente Alves do Ó's film, we feel like saying "a star is born". Portuguese film rightly deserved it, especially the Portuguese filmgoer deserved it. The story of "Quinze Pontos na Alma" is Portuguese, but universalist. Form and content merge to perfection. From the languid opening and end credits to the film score, of rare intelligence in Portuguese film, from the film sets studied in detail to the sensibility in camera placement, from the deep dialogue to the actors direction, everything converges in order to tell us the story in the best possible -- and talented -- way, the story of a woman who abandons everything for a dream. One of the great Portuguese films of the last years."
JOÃO ANTUNES
in Jornal de Notícias, April 8th, 2011
