Beautiful black & white cinematography, and I love the reveal of the secret affair an old Portuguese woman had decades prior in Africa. There's something profound in understanding the elderly were young once too, full of the same passions, and something brutally poignant in knowing that the memories of one's true love in life never die.
Beware, however, that it takes a long time to get there. The film is divided into two roughly equal parts, and the first, which is set in the present, is rather listless. I don't think the two other characters in the present (Pilar and Santa) added much to the story, even if you can later conceive of the contrast of Pilar's activism and her mature response to the man trying to woo her to the main character, Aurora, and see a form of progress. To me, the narrative meandered rather aimlessly until the flashback was told.
It picked up considerably in part two, even if the colonial setting complete with big-game hunting was a turn off. Don't come to this one expecting an exploration into colonialism or racial dynamics either, but then again, that's probably the point, this idealization of the past, and how the personal love story dominates in one's memories. If you have the patience to stay with this one you may be as touched as I was by the ending, but I wish it had been a little more focused.
Beware, however, that it takes a long time to get there. The film is divided into two roughly equal parts, and the first, which is set in the present, is rather listless. I don't think the two other characters in the present (Pilar and Santa) added much to the story, even if you can later conceive of the contrast of Pilar's activism and her mature response to the man trying to woo her to the main character, Aurora, and see a form of progress. To me, the narrative meandered rather aimlessly until the flashback was told.
It picked up considerably in part two, even if the colonial setting complete with big-game hunting was a turn off. Don't come to this one expecting an exploration into colonialism or racial dynamics either, but then again, that's probably the point, this idealization of the past, and how the personal love story dominates in one's memories. If you have the patience to stay with this one you may be as touched as I was by the ending, but I wish it had been a little more focused.