Julia De Simone's slow-burning exploration of heritage and resilience opens with a striking image of a 19th-century black woman staring at modern Rio de Janeiro from an archaeological site. This beautiful shot signals that Formosa Beach aims to study the interplay between past and present and revisit history through the eyes of those wronged by it. The result is a visually rich experience that boldly breaks down stylistic conventions, resulting in a dream-like atmosphere that vividly conjures the spectres of a troubled past.
The experimental narrative leaps between past and present and is tied together by Muanza (Lucília Raimundo), an African woman brought to colonial Brazil as an enslaved woman. Her connection to Kieza (Samira Carvalho), another woman forced into servitude constitutes the story's emotional core. They rely on their bond, taking turns reading and caring for each other's hair. We see them planning to run away, tracing the escape route.
The experimental narrative leaps between past and present and is tied together by Muanza (Lucília Raimundo), an African woman brought to colonial Brazil as an enslaved woman. Her connection to Kieza (Samira Carvalho), another woman forced into servitude constitutes the story's emotional core. They rely on their bond, taking turns reading and caring for each other's hair. We see them planning to run away, tracing the escape route.
- 2/6/2024
- by Sergiu Inizian
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
What makes the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) so endearing beyond its penchant for experimentation is an atmosphere that’s joyful and devoid of stress or self-importance. That was evident at this year’s festival, inside theaters where it seemed like the experience was about sharing cinematic pearls and not about arranging financial deals. The film selection was once again a delightfully uneven mishmash of bold stories with, perhaps, a through line having to do with our complicated relationship to otherness.
In Ulaa Salim’s Eternal, this otherness takes the shape of the Earth itself and of a woman’s body. These two are metaphorically linked through the figure of a fracture, which appears as a sign of the end of times after an earthquake in Iceland cracks the Earth open, and is poetically mapped onto the body of Anita (Anna Søgaard Frandsen) when she and Elias (Viktor Hjelmsø) first have sex.
In Ulaa Salim’s Eternal, this otherness takes the shape of the Earth itself and of a woman’s body. These two are metaphorically linked through the figure of a fracture, which appears as a sign of the end of times after an earthquake in Iceland cracks the Earth open, and is poetically mapped onto the body of Anita (Anna Søgaard Frandsen) when she and Elias (Viktor Hjelmsø) first have sex.
- 2/1/2024
- by Diego Semerene
- Slant Magazine
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