In the eighteenth century the thwarted love affair between a young man from a good family and his 15-year-old neighbor. But the young lovers' families are fiercely opposed.

The third installment of Oliveira's Tetralogy is a brilliant and devastating portrait of young lovers tragically separated by a bitter feud between their aristocratic families. In Doomed Love Oliveira tested his belief in a creative merging of theatrical, literary and cinematic narrative traditions. His radical approach to adaptation captures the multilayered language of Camilo Castelo Branco's eponymous epic novel to offer a virtual phenomenology of life and love in 18th century Portugal. After a disastrous premiere on Portuguese television, the theatrical release of Oliveira's re-edited version was quickly hailed as a landmark in the history of the European art film.—Harvard Film Archive