Bunraku

Documentary film about identity spectacle and ethnography. Alto do Minho is more than a documentary, it's an impression. It sets off from the lowlands to the high season, to show different shades. The before and after, which are, after all, the same immutable Atlantic cycles of the mountainous landscape. And the upper lands. Where the profane is mistaken for faith, such as the past with present times. Alto do Minho is more than a movie, it's a moving portrait. Glimpses that may bear the epic background of Gance, but that are a pop ethnographic observation, which rises up to the dormant feeling. It freezes up the anonymous and landscapes of popular festivals, geographies in shots with an impressionist editing, impregnated with an underlying randomness. —Eduardo Sardinha