A November day in Porto, in a square where skaters jump up a flight of stairs. Three characters share a moment, which is divided into three subjective shots and which, without dialogue, are intended to characterize them emotionally. The idea of shared love is called into question.
As in rococo painting (by Marguerite Gérard, for example), where several characters occupy a space and draw multiple glances between them (from which all kinds of speculations can be plotted), in The Illusion of an Everlasting Kiss Marta Sousa Ribeiro (whose Simon Chama was shown at IndieLisboa in 2020) stages a realm of crossed glances in permanent circulation, based on a small episode of everyday life. Following the narrative scheme of Rashomon, we return again and again and again to the same situation, and with each repetition we discover it from a new point of view. But the director literalises this idea using three subjective cameras that are attached to three different bodies. This subjectivation therefore operates according to schemes of desire and repulsion that translate ways of understanding others from different positions of gender, sexuality, class and age. Starting from the banal, Sousa Ribeiro rehearses an intriguing reflection on the furtive power of the gaze and on the social theatre of reality. – Ricardo Vieira Lisboa
