Three generations of Portuguese men — Tiago, Raul and Manuel — who live between dreams, lost glories and existential crises find their lives intertwined with Karen, a Brazilian woman who wanders around Lisbon, while sending letters that detail her wanderings. A film in opposition to the idea of a gentrified city.
Three Portuguese men from three generations (the father, the son and the… grandson, who is no holy spirit) and a Brazilian tourist wander around Lisbon. This is the premise of Telmo Churro’s feature debut, which continues (by expanding the family and the geographical space) the short film Rei Inútil (2014), not only in its portrayal of the city, but also in the way daily experiences intersect with the historical past as a mythological echo or a haunting of fate. Churro returns to “his” Lisbon places (those that can still be visited during the day) and to “his” founding myths (suicidal revolutionaries like Antero de Quental and Admiral Cândido Reis), assuming the logic of the tour as a narrative device, following the path of Manoel de Oliveira’s didactic-pessimistic films (O Dia do Desespero and Non). However, the satirical-sweet tone is much closer to César Monteiro, with “Relação das Fúrias e Desgostos” being on the level of his bedbug monologue. In Portuguese cinema, helplessness has never been so romantic. (Ricardo Vieira Lisboa)