"Vanitas uses images and poetics of a type of allegorical
painting that flourished in Europe during the 16th century, representing
the battle between the Vanitas of this World and Time and the Triumph of
Death. […] In a secret village that has been forgotten by time,
Calvinism, which originated in Holland, has been adapted to present-day
Oporto. The city is dominated by an immense cemetery, the Prado do
Repouso, which overlooks the river and is crisscrossed by trains and old
abandoned tunnels, and by the Colégio dos Orfãos that dominates the
river from further below […]. There, in this sublime and degraded
landscape, the fragile Human Vanitas are the same as always: absolute
beauty, pleasure, fashion, wealth, glory, all try to resist the
shipwreck of time, pain, death, betrayal, and oblivion. With the help of
Regina Guimarães, we plunge into a romance world that is made to measure
for the excessive heroine of Rio do Ouro. We follow this imaginary world
of illusion and fashion - money and easy loves - with characters from a
melodrama: gravediggers, coffins, skeletons, top models, impossible
loves, deaf-mutes, tailors, drunkards, traffickers." (Paulo Rocha)
Biography
film director
Paulo Rocha
Paulo Rocha (Oporto, 1935) studied law in Lisbon and frequented film clubs. From 1959 to 1961 he lived in Paris, where he was an assistant to Jean Renoir and attended the IDHEC. His first film, Os Verdes Anos (1963) marked the birth of the new Portuguese cinema. Fascinated by the Far East and Japanese cinema, he was cultural attaché of the Portuguese Embassy in Tokyo for many years. During this time, he also completed the key film of his opus, A Ilha dos Amores (1980). Despite difficulties tied to production, he continued his work in Portugal, and became one of the mos
FILMOGRAFIA
Os Verdes Anos (1963), Mudar de Vida (1965), Sever de Vouga (cm, 1970), Pousada das Chagas (1971), A ilha dos Amores (1982), A ilha de Moraes (1984), O Desejado / Les Montagnes de la Lune (1987), Máscara de Aço Contra Abismo Azul (1988), Oliveira, o Arquítecto (1993), O Senhor Portugal em Tokushima (1993), Shoei Imamura, le Libre Penseur (1995), O Rio do Ouro (1998), Camões (1999), As Sereias (cm, 2001), A Raiz do Coração (2000), Vanitas (2004).