 and O Fim Do Mundo (2019), Basil Da Cunha returns to the feature with Manga D'Terra){kind=link}
After Até Vera Luz (2012) and O Fim Do Mundo (2019), Basil Da Cunha returns to the feature with Manga D’Terra. Like the 2019 film, his most recent one participated in the Main Competition of the 76th Locarno Film Festival. The Swiss-Portuguese director looks again at Lisbon’s suburbs and the Reboleira neighbourhood-slum. Just as Spira in O Fim Do Mundo had wandered through its ruins like a ghost after an eight-year detention in a correctional facility, now it is Rosa’s turn. From Capo Verde, the young woman protagonist has come to seek a better life for herself and her two children, whom she left in the care of her mother in her homeland. Hers is a difficult journey, first and foremost metaphorical, within all the ranges of human species, and not only the positive ones. She has to juggle the abuse of employers, those of men and also, indiscriminately, of women who do not accept her, not so much because she is a foreigner but more because she is a beautiful one. Her beauty cannot leave one indifferent, but that is often a burden, turning her into an easy prey, for insults or verbal and sexual harassment.
But the young woman’s journey is also literal, and not only the one of her migration from Africa to Portugal. Kicked out for no reason by her first employer, Rosa is lost and wanders from house to house, from place to place, in an increasingly degrading atmosphere that leads her to pick up her wrecked suitcase and follow the abyss. In this she has no choice but to still cling to what keeps her alive. It can be the image of her family, that she sees in the grainy video calls, or her passion: she sings.
This is certainly the most intriguing aspect of the film, which takes the form of a peculiar musical, where the moments devoted to singing are few and seem to fit fluidly into the diegetic universe, seamlessly. It is through the extraordinary voice of the protagonist, the singer Eliana Rosa (who composed most of the music), that the voiceless people are given a voice, in the neighbourhood of the last ones, the forgotten, so often the target of police raids.
For its style and content, the film takes on a valence between musical and documentary.
This is reflected in an almost dualistic visual rendering, in which moments that seem effectively like a chronicle – filmed on camera which almost circles around the protagonist – are alternated with nocturnal moments – also singing ones – that are often Rosa’s daydreams. The nights play on the dualism between red and green. The latter is often linked– most likely by association with her homeland – with the moments when Rosa seems to find peace and consolation. While the red usually belongs to the most frightening ones, and perhaps it is no accident that during the day the protagonist is often dressed in this color.
However, these are in fact the only really intriguing elements of the film, which otherwise seems rather flimsy and to be honest, despite its theme, quite uninvolving. Many elements of the script seem contrived, and it is not hard to predict them.
The ending remains suspended, somewhere between dream and reality, deliberately without clarification. It is the title song of the film: the mango of the earth. Fruit that was born far away and has crossed many miles to bring its properties to where it has arrived, and where it can finally ripen. The song is beautiful, but the only value of the scene seems to give stage for Eliana Rosa to shine. And she obviously does, greatly.
Manga D’Terra belongs to that category of movies that are necessary for their content, and that’s already something, because it draws attention over areas and situations that are never talked about enough. But it takes more to make a good feature. Although the main characters are vividly and sincerely portrayed, and the main actress’ performance is excellent, it is nevertheless one of those lukewarm films. One of the many that travel festivals: necessary, right, beautiful to watch, but which for who knows what reason are easily forgettable. It’s not one of those that leave a trace.
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