José e Pilar

This funny and touching documentary follows the famous Portuguese novelist José Saramago (who died in 2010) during two of the last years of his life. Constantly accompanied, advised and adored by his Spanish wife Pilar del Río, the elderly writer submits-not without a degree of passive resistance-to the constraints of a celebrity never sought. Travelling the globe, snoozing with Gabriel García Márquez during events in their honour, Saramago is more than aware that each passing moment brings him a little closer to the end. But it is not so much death that bothers this famously cynical atheist as the thought of leaving Pilar behind, the love of his life, who, as he says, was so long in coming. (AZ Films)