SFF NOTES: Letters from War (2015, Dir. Ivo M. Ferreira)

Ivo M. Ferreira's black and white cinematic treatment of the letters, reportage and first two novels of Portuguese writer António Lobo Antunes relies heavily on the written word. Much is related in the letters that pass between António (Miguel Nunes), stationed in Angola during the colonial wars, and his then pregnant wife (Margarida Vila-Nova), back home in Lisbon.

Treading in the footsteps of The Thin Red Line, much of António's letters are engulfed in love and longing, and the vast majority of Ferreira's images are given over to the encampment life of the soldiers, well removed from the action. So, though though ostensibly about Portugal's hand in the bloody oppression late 20th Century African states, Ferreira makes it personal in a way that almost overtly eschews the political.

Comment is given tangentially, a comment here or there that António is questioning the reasoning for the Europeans in being there or a radio broadcast announcing the government's intentions to protect settlers, but these interludes never pull on the film's arc. Similarly, atrocities, such as the casual rape of women by the soldiers, are presented with normalising nonchalance. Only António's brief guardianship of a young orphan places any emphasis on the situations inherent, self-serving paternalism, and even then it is closed off with dismissive rapidity.

Without any cutting focus, Letters from War gives over to the visuals. They deserve celebration, if a thing of beauty can be made of such ugly wars.

Yet, somehow, sinking into them feels complicit.

★★★

Trailer:

Letters from War screened as part of the Sydney Film Festival 2016.

You can check out other films from the festival here.