Profligate Aurora and kindhearted Pilar don’t have much in common. Then Gian Luca Ventura enters the picture, a mysterious man who changed Aurora’s life fifty years prior, and even Pilar’s mundane existence takes a new turn. What happened back in that Portuguese colony between the man and woman? And what role can be assigned to a crocodile as it passes mutely through the decades? The movie, whose title was taken from F. W. Murnau’s classic, draws its artistic sensibility in part from old movies, although it never directly references them. The director avoids following a particular style, seeking instead to recreate the essence of pictures from the 1920s and 1930s and taking inspiration from the tales of the older generation. The humor in the film is similarly unobtrusive and instinctive, yet clearly controlled by a strong vision, as is its genial and kitsch-free romanticism. The director uses the latter to toy with the audience and to look back on events that might or might not have happened. Everyone knows you shouldn’t believe everything you see in the movies. Nor should you underestimate the power of small deeds.