O movimento das coisas, Manuela Serra, Portugal, 1985, 85’.

O Movimento das Coisas (Manuela Serra, Portugal, 1985, 85')

Stories from a daily routine of silence. In deserted byways troubled by a worrying wind, in a village in the North. There is a day’s labour spent by three families: four old women, the countryside, bread, the hens, and to remind us, clearings of time-worn stories of actions savoured in the mineral bite of words. A family of 10 children on a farm plunge into the depth of time in the labour-laden action of the father cutting down a tree. Further on the water of the river inhabited by people, in a boat, the Sun and the village centre, the bridge under construction, the verandah, the meal, the density and mysticism of Sunday, the mass and the local fair: the ritual practice of Saturday. Isabel moves against the fragments of this scenery, she too with her gaze to the future, beyond all the others for whom life is no more than living. Time goes beyond sunrise and sunset. Life is inhaled using the countryside as a medium in a village of the North with its slow and ancient activities. It is a pause in life through things and their dislocation in time; values; silence.