Os Canibais (1988)

The young Margarida falls passionately in love with the wealthy but mysteriously sorrowful Viscount de Alvaleda. The Viscount loves Margarida too, but he guards a distressing secret that he will reveal to her only on their wedding night. Dom João, Margarida’s rejected suitor, is consumed by jealousy and now makes death threats against the couple. But the tragic drama that follows does not unfold as expected: on their wedding night, the Viscount reveals his arm and leg prostheses to his bride. Despite her earlier vows of love, Margarida runs in horror into the garden, while the Viscount, a naked torso, falls into the blazing fireplace. Dom João storms into the bedroom, intending to kill the couple before their wedding night is consummated, and the burning Viscount explains the circumstances to him. Dom João then removes the Viscount’s prostheses and clothes, which are lying about, and goes into the garden to shoot himself. A short while later, Margarida’s father sets out with his two sons to look for the couple. They do not find them in their rooms, so instead they eat some of the meat roasting in the fireplace. Only afterwards do they find the untouched marital bed in the next room, before discovering the dying Dom João in the garden, with Margarida beside him, having shot herself. Dom João tells them that he had wanted to kill the couple, but found the Viscount dead in the fireplace and the body of the woman he loved in the garden, and then shot himself in despair. Shaken, the father and sons want to follow Margarida in death, but then the son who is a lawyer remembers that, as their sister’s heirs, they are now also heirs to their wealthy brother-in-law. The magistrate promises a solution to the problem of the Viscount’s body no longer being identifiable, and the three break into jubilation. A master of ceremonies guides the audience through the film, which is staged as an opera, with sung explanations always accompanied by the violinist Niccolò Paganini.