VOLTA À TERRA (Return to Earth) B+
aka: Be(Longing)
Portugal (78 mi) 2014
d: João Pedro Plácido Official
site
Co-written, shot, and directed by João Pedro Plácido, a
Lisbon-born director raised by his maternal grandparents who began shooting
music videos at the age of 19, attending film school in both Lisbon and
Germany, as he is fluent in five languages.
Most of his previous work has been as a documentary cinematographer,
where this is his first venture as a director.
Perhaps as a tribute to his grandparents, who are originally from the
region explored in northern Portugal, the life depicted hasn’t changed much
through the centuries, with farmers raising cattle and living off the land,
where rising early and capturing the ritual of their daily routines comprises
the majority of this somewhat slight work.
By exploring the four seasons in the remote village of Uz, in many
respects it treads on similar territory as Michelangelo Frammartino’s wordless Le
Quattro Volte (The Four Times) (2010), where the cycle of life feels
unchanged since Biblical times. In
modern day Portugal, most have left these rural havens to seek work in the
cities, leaving the arduous work to the large families that actually have the
manpower to perform all the necessary chores, where a good deal of the film is
witnessing family members out in the fields plowing or harvesting their crops,
offering a communal feel to their lives that resembles Dovzhenko’s EARTH
(1930), especially the jovial talk that they provide, continually teasing one
another, making jokes at someone else’s expense, all in good fun, where the
older family members continually ridicule the laziness of youth, as they have
it so much easier than previous generations.
What’s remarkable are scenes where workers toiling at their backbreaking
farm work break out into song at a moment’s notice, perhaps playing to the
camera, but it happens with regularity, with the men often choosing saucy
songs, like the kind sailors might sing at sea.
In fact, there’s a good deal of profanity expressed, usually when
something doesn’t go as it should, but they use it as comic relief, where
there’s a surprising amount of humor involved in just getting through each
day. One might attribute this to being a
close-knit family, where they meet regularly over meals, where joking with one
another is what comprises the dinner conversation.
Most of the film focuses upon Daniel (Daniel Xavier
Pereira), at twenty-one, one of the youngest members to pull his own weight out
in the fields, who dropped out of school in the 9th grade to help work on his
family farm, where we see him at the crack of dawn, with fog still lingering in
the air, as he lets the cattle out of their stables and leads them down a rocky
pathway, up a few stairs, and out into the rolling hills where they can graze
all day on fresh grass. Calling each by
name, swearing profusely when they ignore him, he is a modern day shepherd that
spends his days tending to a prime herd of cattle while lost to his own dreams
and ambition. The film offers a mix of
rural solidarity within a strong family unit that must work together to
survive, but also moments of solitude, where the presence of the land is
paramount. Daniel jokes about an aging
bull that finds it more difficult to procreate, claiming it needs some Viagra while
being teased relentlessly about how he needs to offer a helping hand. Part of what attracts the filmmaker’s interest
is the eccentricities of the elders, who develop their own habits, where one
interestingly walks to one of the town’s celebratory festivities with a scythe
still in his hand. One of the more
amusing scenes features Daniel attempting to communicate with a young French
boy, where they seem to do nicely by speaking only their own languages, where
the young kid is not in the least persuaded to learn Portuguese. While there are scenes of gathering wheat,
tying them into stalks, there are also sheep that are individually sheared by
hand, while a gigantic pig is butchered into various sized cuts of meat, where
nothing seems to go to waste. As they
work, pulling a stalled tractor out of the mud, people from town can be seen
standing around the road shooting pictures of them, where a centuries-old
tradition collides with the modern era, as if farmers have become an endangered
species. It appears the village was
founded about 700 or 800 years ago, but the population has dwindled recently,
with a current population of under 100 residents, where one farmer can be heard
lamenting, “Those that work the most, earn the least.”
The film is surprisingly more upbeat than one might think,
filled with jovial moments, none more electrifying than the annual village
festival, where Daniel encounters an attractive former classmate (Daniela Barrosa)
now living in a neighboring town, where they hang out together, walking in a
candle-lit church procession, each carrying their own candle, where Daniel
can’t remember the words to the songs, as it’s been so long since he’s been to
mass. She reminds him that it’s like
riding a bike, sarcastically telling him “You’re the man, Daniel” when he
remains clueless, continuing into the church service where he noticeably sings
off-key. But he’s cool with it, even if
she’s embarrassed, where there is music and dancing afterwards, with old people
sitting on the sidelines gossiping, followed by an extremely loud fireworks
display. He, of course, hears about it
from his family the next day, where he constantly takes a ribbing from his
elders who are curious if he feels strongly enough to run off with her to live
in her town. Suffice it to say, Daniel
is happy where he is, where he’s in line to inherit a sizeable piece of the
farm, and he obviously enjoys the way of life that he’s grown accustomed
to. As he takes the cattle out into the
fields the next day, he pulls out a cellphone and calls his sweetheart, but she
has no real interest in becoming a farm girl, leaving him to wonder about what
might have been. Realizing potential
wives are scarce, Daniel tries to save face by indicating he might have to seek
a bride over the Internet, perhaps from China or Brazil. But as the summer winds fade, the season’s
change, where a female cow gives birth, where the stable is full of young
calves, offering hope for the future as the winter snow settles in. While ostensibly a documentary on the
unchanging landscape in a constantly changing world, it’s also a coming-of-age
story rooted in family traditions while also being influenced by the luxuries
and temptations swirling all around from a more contemporary urban life.
