Conversa Acabada (João Botelho, 1981) is a film that with its conception of the cinematic image as «flat» and a notion of recognition and examination of its own apparatus, uses the filmic depiction of the works of Fernando Pessoa and Mário de Sá-Carneiro to provide an evidence that cinema of a more hegemonic character tends to conceal: the material heterogeneity of the cinematic medium. Through theoretical concepts proposed by André Bazin and Ágnes Peth?, the purpose of this article is to establish that this film, by means of a type of image similar to that of a surface and through resources such as intermediality and reflexivity, presents various forms to inscribe writing on the film.