Xavier. 1991. Portugal. Directed by Manuel Mozos. Screenplay by Mozos, Jorge Silva Melo, Manuela Viegas. With Pedro Hestnes, Isabel Ruth, Cristina Carvalhal, Isabel de Castro. 4K digital restoration by Cinemateca Portuguesa; courtesy Cinemateca Portuguesa. In Portuguese, with English subtitles. 100 min.
Influenced by Paulo Rocha’s The Green Years, Manuel Mozos captures a story of love and abandonment in Lisbon’s streets, and breathes new life into Portuguese cinema’s lyrical tradition. Xavier returns from military service to face his unresolved past—a life in youth institutions, his mother’s mental illness—and the challenge of building new relationships while trying to ignore his fear of betrayal. Unable to find his footing, Xavier faces hardships in becoming a man that echo the loneliness of an orphaned boy who is silently desperate for love, yet fears it as well. Faced with production difficulties that shut the film down unexpectedly, Xavier was finally released 10 years later than initially planned, establishing Mozos as one of Portugal’s most delicate, sensitive filmmakers and actor Pedro Hestnes as a rare, moving presence in Portuguese cinema, his tenderness and muted pain recalling the likes of Jacques Perrin and Montgomery Clift.