The final film in Oliveira's Tetralogy is its darkest, a fascinating journey to the dangerous extremes of obsessive love. A simultaneous homage to the silent cinema and the original novel by Bessa-Luís, Francisca's evocative literary intertitles add a further layer of commentary and complexity to the tragic love affair that slowly destroys the bewitching Fanny Owens and her ne'er-do-well lover. Diffused with an aura of death and the supernatural, Francisca makes striking use of masks and shadows. Francisca marked the start of the remarkable collaboration between Oliveira and maverick producer Paolo Branco who would produce Oliveira's next twenty films.