Luas Novas: Rita Barbosa

“Films should be more like clouds — with a density that is visible, but cannot be touched. What we see at the surface of the cloud is not the same as what we see inside. Inside, it disappears, disassembles, evaporates, while still leaving a great impression. It is crucial to leave the viewer alone with the facts.”

This sentiment is expressed by the narrator of the film Amigos Imaginários (2019), in which the director, visual artist and set designer Rita Barbosa, from Porto, captures the depth and complexity of cinema and cinematic production. These words convey the filmmaker’s perceptive, poetic vision, highlighting the evanescent, transformative nature of her work and its detailed internal construction.

Taken as a whole, Barbosa’s filmography reveals a meticulous observation and careful exploration of themes from mundane reality, as well as a practice dedicated to writing and editing, albeit in a fragmented fashion. She challenges conventions by interweaving narratives that are both documentary and absurd. This approach also encompasses her ability to combine intellectual intrigue with elements of fantasy and a refined sense of humour, resulting in a skilfully captured visual symphony that evokes the aesthetic of French, Italian and Spanish cinema from the 1960s and 1970s.

These films stand out for their transparent, revelatory approach to cinematic construction, immersing themselves in interactions between the visual and audio, laying bare the artifices and artificialities of the industry and deconstructing the cinematic illusion, all as a means of bringing fiction closer to fact. They also uncover social relations associated with film production, challenging prevailing structures with a camera that is often seen observing the territory from a lonely distance.

In her debut film, À Noite Fazem-se Amigos (2016), Barbosa infuses the drama of famiglia life with the inertia of reality, the absence of a resolution, and the empty passing of time, be it at home or on a hunt for wolves — highly social animals that live in woods and are known for their strong family bonds, thus often serving as a metaphor for teamworking and the importance of community. Explicit references to the backbone [JO1] of streaming services and on demand platforms, which have transformed the traditional landscape of audiovisual funding and production, as well as to canonical works by Tarkovsky and Marx, turn this film into an incisive critique of the budgetary restrictions imposed on film production in the year it was made.

The essence of Barbosa’s practice is at its most tangible, however, in Amigos Imaginários (2019). This work between cinema and performance stands out for its daring exploration of the mechanisms of illusion and the mastery of post-production, offering the audience an experience of rare authenticity through an exploration of the farce technique known as foley.

In this context, while the foley artists meticulously follow the sonic instructions of the screenplay and raccord, thus ensuring a perfect fit between the images and day-to-day sounds of Porto, the camera, in time with the rhythmic patterns, shapes, movements and properties of the sonic effects, immerses the audience in an honest experience. The film goes deeper into the technical and creative elements that shape the cinematic narrative, lifting the curtain on the creative process and bringing to light the tricks that breathe life into the visual and audio world of cinema. In this work, the director delivers an involving sound composition and narrative, which consider the minuscule visual and atmospheric details that become bathed in the golden light of the setting sun at the end of the film, revealing Rita Barbosa’s practice as a captivating kind of cinematic nephology.

An analysis of her latest film, Segunda Pessoa (2022), gives us a helpful view of Rita Barbosa’s methods and the evolution and variety of her work, displaying how she mobilises material between films to build new narratives and reconstruct her cinematic language. The film uses B-roll footage from the previous production, giving the city of Porto a leading role and establishing a solid foundation for contextualising and appreciating the city as a wild archive of the living. This work, which is characterised by its ironic approach and distinct realism, takes a look at the director’s urban context. Furthermore, it depicts moments rooted in the permeable nature of the city’s architecture, illustrating the ability of these buildings to assimilate the dynamic elements of the seventh art.

These films require audience members to immerse themselves in the intricate layers of narrative, asking them to explore the text and unveil the metaphors that reveal the complexity and depth of the cinematic experience. The films, like clouds, arouse an aesthetic appreciation of visual and sonic constructions, bringing the audience closer to the elements that often remain hidden behind the magic of cinema.

Foley is a technique of studio-recorded sound effects, where the sounds of footsteps, doors closing, brakes, etc., are reproduced by sound artists working in synchrony with the film, with the aim of achieving greater realism in each scene.