Mysteries of Lisbon

Ruiz's final film is also arguably his finest, a wonderfully fresh, fluid and frequently funny adaptation of a novel by the 19th-century writer Camilo Castelo Branco. Sumptuously elegant on every level, it relates a rich, complex tale of terrible injustice, turbulent passions, grand revelations and - Ruiz revels especially in these - secret and changing identities. Stylistically idiosyncratic but as compelling as an operatic soap, it makes for intriguing comparison with the works of Dickens.