Do you believe in the soul?
Late July, heat, Lisbon promenade, disturbing violin. A man wanders around the city waiting to meet "ghosts." He's scheduled for 12.
Hypnotically hovering camera, mysterious faces of people and the white city, which has long been strongly associated with me with the city between worlds ("Portuguese nun" by Eugene Greene, "Strange case of Angelica" Oliveiro, and favorite "White city" of the same Alain Tanner).
So, wet, the main character decides to buy a shirt to change. So what? Where in Europe can I buy something on Sunday? “Gypsies, in the cemetery,” the driver suggests. - Let's go! - The passenger responds. Funny but true.
Arriving at the cemetery, the hero crosses the thin line between the dead and the living and meets his friend, who died a few years ago. They go to lunch and discuss the past. Of course they are. But this meeting with the dead does not end.
It draws into its nets deep, brown eyes of Portuguese women, white-stone streets, swaying water and intrigue. What happens next? What? But that's not all. The feeling with which the theme of the dead is raised and the desire to talk to them, to ease the soul, to cure the conscience - the same "saudade" in Portuguese, will call and beckon me to watch this tape again and again.
Healing meetings and conversations, stones and water, sun and greens – this is Alain Tanner’s Requiem. An unforgettable movie.