Aparelho Voador a Baixa Altitude

In the very small list of portuguese fantasy/sci-fi productions "Aparelho Voador" is certainly the best. First for Solveig's excellent choice of Ballard's short story and her script that turned the story richer and stronger, second for Margarida and Miguel's great interpretations and third, for the fabulous set that looks like one of those incredibly expensive custom Hollywood sets but it's only an abandoned tourist area at the Troia peninsula, near Lisbon. One drawback though: the scene where a drunk Judite dances in front of a silent audience. It left an uncomfortable sensation of "portuguese cinema deja vu". It's a very good movie, congratulations Solveig.

If you like art-house sci-fi films, then this J.G. Ballard adaptation is definitely worth checking out. As a Ballard fan I started watching this with low expectations but found myself pleasantly surprised.

The story is set in a dystopian future, in which human populations are dwindling fast because almost all babies become mutants and are thus either aborted or post-natally disposed of. It's Sci-Fi, but refreshingly devoid of techno-gadgetry. The plot's theme has a hint of Eraserhead (Ballard's story was published a year before David Lynch's film was released), whereas stylistically it resembles Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville and Weekend, or perhaps Fassbinder's World on a Wire. I wouldn't recommend this film to the average fan of space opera.

The film was made on a low budget and the plot and style were kept simple. But in my opinion this only works to the film's advantage. Ballard's work deals a lot with the impact of visual culture, for fetishistic and ritualistic purposes rather than any commercial motive. Personally I associate this aspect with the raw look of a low-tech production, rather than with glamorous, Hollywood-style cinematography. That's why I find "Aparelho Voador a Baixa Altitude" truer to the Ballardian world than David Cronenberg's Crash.

The film makes good use of the strong source material. The director is very familiar with Ballard's work (she interviewed the writer 16 years prior to making this film) and she intuitively knows how to visualize his world. There's plenty of beautiful Ballardian architecture for instance.

It's a little strange at first to watch a Ballard adaptation in Portuguese, but this does not detract from the film. There are even one or two comedic moments. The acting is overall quite decent, if I'm not mistaken the main actress won a Portuguese Golden Globe.