A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.

2006 film by Manoel de Oliveira

Pedro is a young agricultural worker who gets caught in the middle of a fight between two families, kills a man and escapes to the capital. He can't find work,resorts to begging, but keeps his mountaineer pride. He starts a new life with a prostitute who is nice to him, but nothing works. He returns home, and alone, and now he finds life there is sad as well.

1964 film by Fernando Lopes

Having lost her place among the social elite, a widow remarries and starts a family.

Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. In her youth she marries Dr. Carlos Paiva, her father's friend, to whom she is not attracted. They move to the valley of Abraham. Carlos loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. As time goes by she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage, so she finds a new lover.