Ruins
Ruínas
Portugal
2009
37 Views
37 Views
Fragments of spaces and times, remains of eras and places inhabited only by memories and ghosts. Traces of things which time, the elements, nature and human action have modified and still do. With the passing of time everything that was cease to exist, eventually becoming into something else.
Places that no longer make sense, that are no longer necessary, that are no longer fashionable. Forgotten, obsolete, stark, empty places.
It isn’t necessary to explain why they were created or why they existed, nor the reasons why they were abandoned or transformed. We’re only promoting an idea, somehow poetic, about something that was and still is part of this country’s (hi)story.
Manuel Mozos (born June 1959, Lisbon) is a Portuguese film director. He studied History and Philosophy before enrolling the School of Theatre and Cinema, where he specialized himself as an editor. Was responsible for the edition of several films until, in 1989, he directed Um Passo, Outro Passo e Depois… and, in 1992, his first feature, Xavier. Since then he also directed several documentaries and video clips. Diana, produced and released by Rosa Filmes, is his most recent film.
The film asks from the start the question of religion's function in preservation and contrasts with family or other ways of social organisation. It shows how social ideas are likelly to keep changing against the volatability of humankind while only a religious believe keeps preservation. The imagery of the different locations has the beauty of the decay and a disturbing nostalgic feeling and mood of the past.