Synopsis
1942, Portugal. In a country ruled by dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, two French refugees, Boris and Laura, are arrested. Inspector Vargas is instantly attracted to the young woman and decides to hide both refugees in his house, an empty hotel where he lives with his daughter Ilda and his gravely ill wife. Ilda then discovers the presence of the refugees and, consumed by jealousy, she will try to make them disappear at any cost…
The background is the Second World War, as seen from a country which remains distant from it – Portugal. Subjected to a ruthless dictatorship, the country paradoxically becomes a refuge and a space of freedom for thousands of people who, otherwise, would have lost that freedom as well as their lives.
Most of the action takes place in a closed down hotel, in a closed-doors setting which is similar to that of the country under the dictatorship – isolated from the rest of the world and from history unfolding.
So it is a unique and crepuscular scenery, made of long dark deserted corridors, closed doors, dimly lit rooms, and filled with ghostlike, sheets-covered furniture. The paper ribbons put on the windows in prevention of hypothetical shrapnels filtrate the outside light, and contribute to creating an oppressive atmosphere, which is reminiscent of an aquarium – as accentuated by the many water photographs hung on the hotel walls (sea, rivers, lakes, waterfalls). Inside, the characters seem to be drifting in mid-water, under cover of desires exacerbated by imprisonment.
It is a half-lit universe where only outside noises can carry sporadic echoes of urban life, and the clamor of the war still happening somewhere else comes through the radio and the nearby film theatre’s newsreels’ soundtrack.
Carlos Saboga
