Visit, or Memories and Confessions review – Manoel de Oliveira’s remarkable testament

The Portuguese director's stately cine-memoir about his singular life was shot nearly four decades ago but withheld at his request until his death, aged 106

The remarkable Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who died in 2015 at the age of 106 and made movies right until the very end, often seems to me a film-maker from a statelier, almost pre-cinematic era: an epistolary director or manuscript-culture director. Here is what could be called his testamentary film, a personal cine-memoir or cine-meditation. It was shot in 1982, but withheld from release at the director's request until after his death, which would be much further off than anyone imagined. It has only now found a release in the UK.