There’s a studied impassivity to this elegant Portuguese movie about grief from Susana Nobre. It’s a film that maintains its near-affectless deadpan style from first to last, and declines to offer a conventional emotional payoff, or indeed the usual narrative shape that might lead to such a climax – although there is an emotional outpouring of sorts. It isn’t exactly that sadness finds its outlet in oblique or unusual ways (the heavy drinking we see is, after all, a commonplace symptom) but the way it is represented on screen is indirect.
Raquel Castro plays Helena, the production manager of a movie who has to handle a challenging director. Helena is a divorced mother who co-parents her teenage daughter and is romantically involved with a musician currently on tour. Her aging widowed mother resides in an apartment building called Cidade Rabat in Lisbon, where Helena spent her childhood. Her mother is open and discussing her impending death, expressing her desire for Helena to occupy the flat after her passing. This concept brings forth intense emotions for Helena.
Helena is the narrator for the dry opening to the movie, simply showing the entrances to the flats in the building and reflecting on the tenants, which is both opaque and intriguing. After her mother passes away, Helena must take her casket to her hometown of Garvão in the south, boldly interrupting the funeral to reveal that her mother was not a believer. Over the next few months, she embarrassingly gets drunk at a wedding and is later caught driving under the influence, resulting in her being sentenced to community service. She is assigned to work at a youth sports club, where she is scolded by the owner for not helping with the dishes.
The lesson in humility depicted in this experience may not be as dramatic as one might see in a Hollywood movie. Helena is not portrayed as arrogant or insensitive, although her teenage daughter may occasionally be frustrated with her. The film presents Helena’s life as it is, without exaggerating its emotional impact. However, there is a sense of thoughtfulness and compassion throughout the film that lingers in the audience’s mind even after the credits have rolled.
Source: theguardian.com
