In "Espelhos Mágicos" (a title taken from one of the filmmaker's own films), António Roma Torres attempts an approach to the entire body of work of Manoel de Oliveira along the determining lines during a phase of development and affirmation. The focus is given to each of the pillars of cinematic work, as Oliveira successively considered: image, word, music, and sound. The essential aspects of his cinema are examined, particularly in films shot around the 90s (such as "Viagem ao Princípio do Mundo," "Inquietude," and "A Carta"). The variations in the later part of his filmography are not overlooked, encompassing Lusitanian cinema inspired by Camões and Pessoa, the interrogation of the text as a cinematic object, and the memories and confessions gradually revealed by his discretion. The fixed final shots of John Malkovich in "Um Filme Falado" and Michael Lonsdale in "O Gebo e a Sombra" seem to marcate the last decade around his centenary.

Simultaneously, Torres seeks to clarify Manoel de Oliveira's cinema as a form of thought, rigorously and imaginatively developed—a true "filmosophy" as proposed by Frampton (2006), a "radically new way of understanding cinema."