An oneiric meditation on love and longing, the often-overlooked Hovering Over the Water gives early and subtle expression to the romantic strain that would grow increasingly baroque in Monteiro’s next major work, his trilogy starring himself as the eccentric libertine João de Deus. Laura Morante stars as an Italian woman grieving her recently deceased Portuguese husband, returned with her children to his Algarve home where she seems to engage in the kind of magical thinking described by Joan Didion. Indeed, the mysterious man who washes onto the beach before her could be a figure of her imagination. Exquisitely beautiful, the simmering emotional power of Hovering Over the Water is shaped by the painterly lighting and composition embraced by cinematographer Acácio de Almeida, who also gave Renacimiento dimensions to Monteiro’s previous film, the visually astonishing Silvestre.