A Zona

This was probably one of the worst movies I've seen for a while. For hour and a half I tried to find some sense, message and waiting for some connection between main characters to appear or whatever else that would make some sense. There's nothing, nothing at all apart from the static scenery shots at the hospital and out in the woods, where camera waits, and waits, and waits... Perhaps I am missing something or didn't understand it.

I was tempted by low ratings this movie got to see it myself, usually they are not that bad and I generally avoid anything below 6.5 but conclusion is disappointing and can only agree - avoid at all cost.

Portuguese directors do this: they turn on cameras, fix them on a scene and wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

The idea is, probably, that sooner or later something will be transmitted to the spectator: art, impressions, the deep sense of life or more. Then we can't forget The Professor, Manuel de Oliveira's style. But not everyone can be de Oliveira. While often in Oliveira's is contemplation, in other's is pretentiousness. A ridiculous one.

So, sadly, most of the times spectator receives a boring sensation, increased by the absence of dialogue and the poor quality of photography. In a Portuguese site, this movie is presented as "the end of the narration movies". And it's true. But there's a problem: if you don't want to tell anything (or if you're not able to), why making a movie?

It's impossible to tell something about actors: they do nothing at all, except moving around slowly. And when they speak (a rare event) you miss most of words just because of a terrible audio (a sin of Portuguese movies). But even this one is not a real problem, dialogues are functional to the movie: boring, no fantasy, nothing at all.

It's sad, but best Portuguese movies are the old ones: '60s, 50's or even before, black and white film. There are good modern movies too: but they are rare, so rare. And "A Zona" is surely not one of them.

Avoid at all cost.

An observational journey, bordering with experimental cinema, but still with a minimum of narrative, this "Zone" offers interlocking portraits of a few characters who confront life, death, loss and mourning, within a frame in which all human beings are weaved together with the flora and fauna as in a symbolic act of continuity and life through nature. Filmmakers as Aguilar try to find a more profound connection between life and film art, distancing themselves from the traditional Aristotelian narrative of causality, and build their films following the lack of strict connection in our daily life, as when we go from a dialog to a gaze, ordinary actions without heroics, from boredom to the sudden irruption of change, good luck, rupture, joy or birth. Admittedly, not for all tastes, but worth a look.