Portuaguese soap - but a very good movie none the less - Mysteries of Lisbon

It's maybe too easy to dismiss Ruiz's four+-hour project, "Mysteries of Lisbon" (2010?) as a glorified soap, and it does have the complex web of loves and hatreds and betrayals of any soap - but there's a lot more to it, I think, at least from the first half (Part one). First of all, the production quality alone makes it worth watching - Ruiz does not work at an exciting pace, it's leisurely and majesterial, but that tone perfectly suits the material, a story that unfolds gradually - set in mid-19th-century Portugal, basic plot summary: wealthy young woman falls in love with a 2nd son of a Count, but her father refuses to allow the marriage because he will inherit nothing; she (Angela) and he continue their relationship; she becomes pregnant, gives up baby, father of baby flees, and her father forces her to marry a wealthy suitor. She's very cold to the suitor - she has turned inward and against the world - and he treats her cruelly. Meanwhile, boy raised as an orphan, under tutelage of Father Denis, who seems to know everything and everyone; mother finally sees her son - around time the husband dies, confessing his sins - and she forgives him, realizing she never should have married. She leaves her son and enters a convent. Priest playing a central role, as we move toward part 2: how does he know so much? Why is a fierce self-made wealth Lisbon guy defending Angela (Countess of Santa Barabara) against slander? Lots of things to explain and relationships to develop in part two. The film at its best reminds me a bit of great Italian series The Best of Youth in its focus on character and its broad historic scope. Mostly it's appealing because of its unusual - to American viewers - look and setting. It's of the Masterpiece Theater quality - in its ballroom scenes (which reminded me a little of The Leopard), its scenes in the convent and the school and the various mansions, and most of all in the beautiful outdoor sequences, carriages moving across an open plain, for example. It has the strange sense for me of looking very familiar - we've all seen many 19th-century costume dramas - but just slightly off: it's neither England, France, Italy, nor Spain - Portuguese architecture and landscape are just slightly different and interesting to behold. We'll see how well the strand come together in part 2 - some of the elements are pretty confusing (apparently its based on a well-known novel of same title - but the novel probably had a lot more material, and it's a challenge to weave all that into a film or series, even at 4+ hours.)