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João Nicolau is joined, again, by Mário Castanheira to
present the viewer a film about past and future times intersected in the
present. A Espada e a Rosa
constitutes one complete film, where the cinematography actively
participates in the visual expression of a dichotomy between two different
worlds and two different times.
The story follows Manuel's life (Manuel Mesquita), an individualist living
in his apartment in Lisboa. However, his life changes to a complete
different experience when he leaves this urban life and joins a cyber pirate
community in the sea aboard of a caravel - Vera Cruz.
These two different worlds that correspond to two historical times will be
differentiated mainly through the colors and the dimensions of spaces,
visually executed through the long or closer shots. For instance, in the
first part of the movie, that can be described as Manuel's life in the city,
there's a predominance of reds through an artificial lighting combined with
a décor in the same color, through close or medium shots, which also
provokes the sensation of narrower and more intimate spaces and which can be
a direct mention to Manuel's individualism and the constraint of the city
life. On the other hand, when Manuel moves to the caravel, there's an
obvious explosion of color through the use of natural light. There's a
predominance of blues, which come from the sea and the sky, widened by long
shots that allude to a sense of freedom, the lack of constraint that
characterized his previous kind of life. The night shots in the caravel are
also lit in a sense that reveals a summer atmosphere.
Therefore, it can be said that the movie is clearly divided by its image
that continuously reveals parallel ideas, such as the individual life vs. a
community life, an undesirable life vs. a life with no constraints. To these
two parts, it can be added a third part which takes place in a vast property
in Alentejo. This property belongs to a mysterious character that appears as
a demiurge, performed by three different actors who are observed from long
shots that can express an authoritative look returned by the character
himself. It also intrinsically describes the impossibility of a sole image
proper to the idea of god and a problematization on power and its several
faces.
There are some remarkable scenes that organize the film. One of them
corresponds to the moment after Manuel leaving his cat with his friend Pedro
in Lisboa, in which the long shot framed within the building natural
framing, makes the viewer experience a moment of reflection with the
character. Its colors, revealed in a dim yellowish light provide this
ambience of reflection and pause, as well as the freeze frame shot. This
scene depicts an entreacte before an accident that will stay as a traumatic
moment of the character.
There is another obvious freeze frame shot taken on the caravel, where a
very composed image depicts Marta (Lígia Soares) painting Juana (Joana Cunha
Ferreira), with some other characters standing still, until the arrival of
some guests. There is, then, an appeal to these new guests and, thus, the
viewer too to enter in their boat, to be affected by their story.
This last mentioned scene makes pair with a similar one, in which one of the
characters of a Rosa is painting the fragment that misses the shot,
reinforcing the idea of the creator, who needs more elements in his
research. The very image of a paradise where the green is its color. Or just
an allusion to the self contentment as a comfortable cage to the mind.
11:09:2010 |
di
Rossana Mendes FONSECA