I'm Going Home

At the age of ninety-two, Manoel de Oliveira has directed a wonderful, spare rumination on death. His alter ego, Michel Piccoli, plays a French theatre actor, who, after delivering the final speech of the dying monarch in Ionesco's "Exit the King," learnsthat his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been killed in a car accident. In an oblique yet effective way, Oliveira doesn't show us Piccoli's reaction, but rather the fretful cluster of his fellow-actors. This is a film of long glances, where the moments are held for extra beats, as though the director is reminding us to look. He's also carefully documenting the quotidian joys of the caf table and a new pair of shoes. Piccoli's performance is a multifaceted portrayal of dignity-in the morning, in theevening, and at the wrong end of a mugging. The sterling supporting cast includes Catherine Deneuve, Sylvie Testud, and John Malkovich as an American film director who whispers "cut" as though it's a curse. In French and English.