The Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira is almost as old as cinema itself. Born in 1908, about a decade after basic motion pictures first hit Portugal (or anywhere), he’s a candidate for any number of superlatives: oldest living director, for one, and probably the last one who shot in the silent era. But he’s also one of the most distinctive and ambitious voices in cinema, young or old, and, as confirmed by his latest release, 2005’s “Magic Mirror,” he is patient and fearless in the manner of someone confidently cruising into a second century of life.

Long before he could wow by his very existence, Mr. Oliveira made his mark across several different eras of cinema. At the ripe age of 20, while dabbling in acting, he directed a lovely silent short about his hometown, Oporto, inspired by Walter Ruttmann’s seminal “city symphony” about Berlin and by Sergei Eisenstein’s ideas of montage. His first feature, “Aniki-Bóbó,” which appeared in 1942, was eventually lauded as a cousin to Neorealism for its tale of street children, cast as themselves.

It was certainly real enough for Portugal’s fascist government, led by Antonio Salazar, under whom Mr. Oliveira had trouble directing regularly (despite praise from the likes of Luigi Pirandello). Often funding his own efforts, the director finally garnered broader critical attention in 1963 with “Acto de Primavera,” a tricky filmed record of a village passion play. After surging back into activity in the post-Salazar 1970s with the unusual literary adaptations that remain his hallmark, he became the rare director to shoot the bulk of his work after his 60’s — more than 25 films from a variety of Portuguese and other sources, wry and thoughtful where other elderly auteurs turn sentimental or irrelevant.

Despite his achievements, and fame in Europe, Mr. Oliveira doesn’t receive quite the same brand-name recognition here as other golden-age graybeards of the art house, like the forever-young French new wavers. Yet his latest films, like “A Talking Picture” and “The Uncertainty Principle,” have a style encompassing the attributes of his fellow European lions. Like Jean-Luc Godard (age 76), he casts a highly literate modernist gaze on history and culture; like Eric Rohmer (86), his films tend to have more dialogue than action; and like Alain Resnais (85), his intelligent sense of artifice is critical.

“Magic Mirror,” which makes its American premiere today with a 10-day run at Anthology Film Archives, boasts all these qualities and the unhurried confidence of a storyteller who takes the long view. Adapted from the novel “The Soul of the Rich” by frequent source Augustina Bessa-Luis, “Magic Mirror” is an enigmatic, even opaque reflection on spirituality, doubt, and experience, set in the country villa of the rich, devout wife of a music teacher.

Alfreda (Leonor Silveira) is obsessed with theological questions, such as the relative wealth of the Virgin Mary. She muses over them with both erudite visitors and her recently hired servant, Luciano (Ricardo Trêpa), a decent ex-convict who is a bit perplexed by his employer. An old prison friend of Luciano, the forger Felipe (Luís Miguel Cintra), who now works as a piano tuner, suggests a ploy to fabricate an apparition of the Virgin Mary. But the plan falls by the wayside when Alfreda drifts into a lingering illness.

The most striking feature of “Magic Mirror” (and other Oliveira films) is its theatrical borrowings, like the head-to-toe framing of closer shots and the often declamatory delivery of the actors (who don’t even face one another much of the time). Playing off this deliberate sense of focus, “Mirror” can also feel like a late Luis Buñuel film, unfolding with great surety and bourgeois courtliness, but baffling in its intention. (Mr. Oliveira, an admirer of Buñuel, has filmed a where-arethey-now sequel to the director’s classic, “Belle de Jour,” called “Belle Toujours,” which opens in two weeks.)

It’s a style that feels at once oldfashioned and lucidly modern, as if drawing indiscriminately on the formal wisdom of cinema old and new. It is also undeniably challenging, although “Magic Mirror” culminates its metaphysical investigations with a breathtaking, deeply rewarding epiphany. Yet Mr. Oliveira’s deliberate pace manages to feel alert and assured, a considered choice rather than an affectation. Given the current stylistic vogue for long takes and dead (or lived) time, it’s perhaps a perfect moment for Mr. Oliveira. His demand for a patient, reflective cinema not solely about movement can be newly appreciated alongside the contemplative Asian auteurs or his resurgent Portuguese colleague, Pedro Costa.

Thanks to Mr. Oliveira’s prolific output, next weekend Anthology will screen a second new work by the director, “The Fifth Empire,” filmed just before “Magic Mirror.” Showing Mr. Oliveira making no compromises, the story of the mad 16th-century King Sebastiao characteristically weds long stretches of what is essentially filmed theater to a resonant historical critique of an empire. Together with a planned project to re-envision the story of Christopher Columbus, Mr. Oliveira, who will turn 100 in a year and a half, is clearly looking ahead with ambition and his trademark curiosity for new worlds.