Rosa de Areia

This was not intended to be António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro's last movie, but it is the perfect farewell from one of the most - if not the most - talented directors in Portugal. "Rosa de Areia" is not a film for all tastes; in fact, it's a kind of "love it or hate it" experience. Nevertheless, I consider it my favorite Portuguese film. Looking at the directors' body of work, it's fascinating to observe the evolution of their poetic, bucolic and metaphysical themes, starting with "Trás-os-Montes", continuing through "Ana", and culminating in "Rosa de Areia". It may be the most unintelligible movie of their career, but it is also the most beautiful, poetic, and surrealistic, elevating the themes of their previous films into a more transcendental realm, with motifs of time and death woven throughout. It is a wonderfully executed masterpiece and a fitting swan song for António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro. As I mentioned earlier, this was not supposed to be the director's last film. They had plans to adapt Juan Rulfo's "Pedro Páramo" to the screen, and considering their career and style, it would have been an extraordinary work of art.

Of course, another ethnographic treasure, this time, the whole film is a colossal metaphor, made of a hundred little other metaphors. Every sentence matters. Every shot has a hidden meaning and I'm 100% sure one single watch is not enough to get them all. Not even half.

This is not an easy watch at all, nor should it be.

By making the surrealist and metaphysical vanguards theirs, while traveling the beauty of the real Portugal, "Desert Rose" is the culmination of Reis and Cordeiro's legacy trilogy. The couples swan song departs from violence and travels all the way into visual poetry, while imposing questions in a combative to the biggest of universal mysteries, our own deaths.