Night O Barao On the rocky terrain rumbles passenger stagecoach. Inside, the twilight hides concentrated faces - the night is approaching, bringing with it anxiety. Men nervously pull thick cigarette smoke, the child from shaking tears directly on someone's shoes, and the confined space of the cabin shudders from the fervent prayer of a pious old woman. Among the passengers, a small person slouches - a school inspector, who keeps his way with a check to places deaf, even on maps not marked. And while the twilight envelops the deserted hills, the official plunges into a tense dream in which, in the middle of a haze-covered swamp, unable to move, he sees a man with a boar head. Dismissing a frightening dream, the inspector descends into a godforsaken village, not even realizing that the local governor, an eccentric old baron, is keeping the entire district at bay.
“Baron” was born thanks to the story of Branquinho da Fonseca and a strange story, perhaps even a hoax, about the film crew, who worked in the forties on the first version of the film and tortured in Salazar dungeons. The story of a feeble man who came face to face with an uncompromising evil - "Baron" is most reminiscent of the famous mute Murnau tape. However, the black and white film of theatrical and avant-garde artist Edgar Per differs from other “Stoker” stories by the collision of things sometimes poorly combined. Elegant envelops the rough - the play of light shade in cardboard decorations, verified angles among the pavilion walls. The union of auteur cinema and low-budget thriller, as if Bergman and Edward Wood, having decided on a joint project, came to an absolute creative symbiosis. Mr. Per’s undisguised sympathy for horror films of the thirties leads to the aesthetic of imitation of films of category B, where the real is difficult to separate from the fake. And after all, on a substantive level, everything is the same - thin pages of a cheap detective and almost scraps of lost manuscripts of Kafka are mixed into one pile. In the charismatic image of the baron, a refined aristocrat and a rude barbarian coexist, and the metamorphosis always occurs suddenly - a sly smile is replaced by a grin, a subtle voice turns to a scream. In the best traditions of horror, evil not only overtakes the inspector, but eats him, making him a part of himself. Behind the veil of cheap metaphysics hides a social drama about the relationship between ruler and servant, even a hidden criticism of authoritarianism, and very bold, because the Salazar mentioned in the beginning of the film is still the most popular historical figure in Portugal. But the main thing is that the philosophical parable here is crowded with frivolous melodrama, and therefore the image of a fatal woman, the only one beyond the control of the baron, ultimately pushes everything else out of the frame. So dreams about something more are interrupted by the imperious call of a proud maid, disobedient to her own master.
But still the visual in the film Pera draws much more attention, largely because the experienced clipmaker has a rather bright idiolect of the film language. “Baron” is a visual demonstration of that rare rebirth, when a craftsman in love with cinema, under the influence of various cultural layers, himself becomes an independent creator, and a set of borrowings turns into an individual handwriting. Overlaying the frames on each other, the director combines parallel events shot from different angles, while, thanks to the verified visual calibration, the scenes do not mix into barely distinguishable images. Constantly using personnel overlay, Pera does not shy away from even completely direct metaphors - hiding behind an iron grille the window of an unwittingly held auditor in the castle. In “Baron” there was a place even for elements of the comic – subtitles here are an integral part of the frame, an element of action and a means of expression. Constant manipulation of shadows, close-ups and protracted pauses, ready at any moment to be interrupted by hysteria, ringing noise ambient – the film is full of tension without obvious elements of horror. Chamber dialogues are replaced by tearful monologues, and the crown of the expression of the film becomes an ominous chapel of castle artists, but as if a whipped dance was peeped at Zhulavsky, where a woman’s body is beating in convulsions, vapor appears and everything that was hidden from view under a long skirt is exposed. But any nightmare sooner or later comes to an end - Edgar Per's film leaves behind a string of images, the dawn sun dispels the darkness, and the night is left behind, and with it the animal fear of the cruel baron. “Baron” is a piece-by-piece movie, similar to everything at once and unlike anything at all – Edgar Per can be reproached only because he is too much in love with cinema, and therefore is hardly close to the mass audience.