BUALA

Colonialism on film: how cinema finds new ways to bust an old Tabu

ECAScreening6: A pair of Portuguese-language films quietly examine the standoff between old Europe and modern multiculturalism. Tabu was "Paradise Lost"; set in a forlorn, present-day Lisbon in which a middle-aged Christian, Pilar, takes a neighbourly interest in the affairs of Aurora, an elderly gambling addict who indulges in mild racism towards her Cape Verdean housekeeper, Santa. When Aurora dies, and Pilar tracks down the woman's former lover, the film's buttoned-up realism blossoms into "Paradise", a stylised account of the couple's days in Portuguese Africa. The affair is conducted against a stylised backdrop that is like a cinematic stampede of past-colonial fantasies and attitudes, from FW Murnau to Tarzan escapades, to the quirk-filtered nostalgia of Wes Anderson.

Afroscreen

16.06.2013 | by Phil Hoad