Mysteries of Lisbon

In today's world a four hour film dealing with an aristocracy of another century is not going to be much hailed no matter its good intentions. It's a huge sweep of a film about aristocratic lovers and their doomed affair in the person of son Joao. From wanting to know the truth of his birth, the story swerves into an enormous saga (in Portuguese) of a multitude of characters and their fates over some three decades. The film has the expanse of novels such as Gone with the Wind, War and Peace and other such masterworks. One main problem is reading subtitles for over four hours. It really does prevent easy access though I would never want to see a dubbed version. Good, but this would have been ideal as a mini-series as it is essential 19th century Portuguese reading. I'm doing the film an injustice with my 6 but it is a tough view.