Previous to "Rite of Spring", but only concluded after it (in 1963, which was a year of revival for the filmmaker), "The Hunt" is the only film by Oliveira based on a fait divers, focused on two friends called José and Roberto in the film. One of them drowns in a swamp before the helplessness of the other, who, terrified by such a vision, runs for help. "The Hunt" is a central work for Oliveira, a film of omens about a fatality that so many times would return to his work from here on. Like in "Rite of Spring", he had problems with censorship, which saw the sinking of the regime in the swamp and imposed on Oliveira a happy ending. Due to its "symbolic rather than realistic" conception, underlined by a soundtrack of enormous importance since the first sequence (the fox's attack on the chicken coop) to the absurd human chain that tries to save the boy ("The hand! The hand!" screams the one-hand man), this is a film that, from threat to threat, fuses everyday life and magic towards the same destiny, where death prowl ruthlessly. In 1988, Oliveira reedits this masterpiece in its original version, keeping as an epilogue the end imposed by censorship. And it is no coincidence that the latter ends with a dog barking furiously at the camera. (Francisco Ferreira)