User Reviews

The testimonials are amazing (both the ones which show how the New State in Portugal destroyed families and the one that describes torture from political police PIDE) but the way director chose to show them is very problematic. The usage of pictures is generally a way of compensating the lack of recorded moving images, but she chose to show very little the three siblings who speak. That made the film too boring for the so interesting testimonials she had in her hands. Besides that, there was no convincing usage of those pictures (perhaps the only exception is the change from a picture of the mother before and after prison), what becomes more serious as the same images were shown for a long time without any change to another one. Basically, a blind could enjoy more the movie than those who also see. Director also shows interesting footage of nature, not always very clear, and with no literal meaning - that was nice and could really work, if it happened for much less time!

It reminded me a lot of The Handmaid Tale fiction as I was seeing it, although it's telling real stories and probably it's more similar to Saramago's novel: "Levantado do Chão". It's powerful and very emotional. I had seen 48 from the same director before. But I liked this one even more. It touched me more. It's more personal. It's like a zoom on a particular drama of a single family (from grandparents to grand kids), and from there we can only imagine the horrors that other families too had suffered at the fascists hands.