A delighted and refreshing performance of Portuguese Cinema. I'm portuguese and all my live I've lived a bitter sweet relation with the cinema of my country. Until today, the day I saw Sleepwalking Land. It's the one true portuguese film that distinguishes itself from a more intimate and pseudo artistic line of movies,
it's a movie for a wider audience and doesn't make the assumption of being a higher class of cinema. The story itself, and the background of the story of a young fisherman trying to survive in a nation torn by war, is by itself very endearing, but the filmmaker is self conscious not to avoid the obvious and objective elements of a war torn country. The movie is very exact and realistic by not only criticizing the war, but most importantly, the consequence of such, a "ghost nation". The actors we're amateurs, but they we're well captured, and the locations, ideal, extremely realistic. The thing that appealed me the most was the shots, they we're very simple and yet, almost poetic, unique, I can almost replay the movie in my head.A very unique and subtle surprise from the portuguese cinema. Highly recommended.
January 26, 2009
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