Director Joao Cesar Monteiro has posed his actors in front of painted backdrops to act out the two 15th-c. fables that form the basis for this theatrical-literary film. Because of its static style, as though moving from one literary illustration to the other, the film does achieve some sense of life many centuries ago (assuming, as we do, that life then was not at the same frenetic pace as in the modern world). ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi