Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 2/11/2018

Opening with a montage showing various forms of transport traversing the city, the scene cuts to an orphanage to show some very young children being nursed. Then, we're off to a girls' school in time to see a demonstration of their daily exercise regime. Physical fitness is also on the curriculum at a high school, where the girls play netball and clamber over climbing frames. Their male counterparts march in ranks behind a draped flag before we see students leaving one of Lisbon's most modern schools. 

Following a visit to one of the capital's many newspapers, we follow three rubes from the country, as they get their first taste of city life. They have trouble crossing the busy roads before one gets scolded for getting too fresh with a mannequin outside a lingerie shop. Next, Leitão de Barros takes us aboard NRP Sagres to watch the sailors swabbing the decks, doing their laundry and climbing the rigging to line up along the timbers of the sails. It's a spectacular sight and the army attempt to match it with a slow-motion display of gymnastics and a cavalry charge. 

Scenes of flirtation and courting occur either side of a montage showing telephone calls criss-crossing the city. We see cats sunning themselves on the steps of the Alfama barrio before pausing to admire the stonework of the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição and the vista from the famous observation deck at Miradouro de Santa Luzia. A detour through some narrow streets in the poorer quarters to watch a couple of kids having a slow-motion fist fight is followed by an excursion to a factory. One of the men hurts his hand in the machinery and he receives a sympathetic pat from his wife when she brings him his lunch. 

In the next sequence, an out-of-towner is duped out of the item he finds on the pavement on the Terreiro do Paco (the central square that is now known as the Praça do Comércio). Next on the agenda is a visit to the bustling Feira da Ladra, which is known as the `Market of Thieves' and we linger while a stallholder haggles with potential customers. A traffic cop causes a commotion when he becomes distracted by a woman on a nearby balcony and a flirtatious female motorist. The jam is not eased by the fact he keeps sneezing and this pompous authoritarian quickly becomes a figure of fun. A similar fate befalls the conductor of a trolley bus, as he tries to find room for a portly passenger and has to argue with a man who has parked his horse and cart on the track. 

Following shots of vendors carrying their wares in baskets on their heads, we head down to the harbour to watch the activities on and around the fishing boats. At the market, a couple of fish wives get into an argument and a passing toff gets caught in a slinging match. Things are much calmer at the flower market, however. But the pace quickly picks up when Sunday comes and Lisboans cram on to trains to spend the day at the beach. While speed boats race in the bay, pleasure seekers make for the funfair, the swimming baths and the open-air dance hall. 

As some tourists arrive at the Belém Tower, we are transported back to the 16th century to see soldiers on duty and preparing for an epic voyage of exploration. A shot of the fleet being waved off is matched to views of dinghies sailing on the sea before we see people enjoying such other forms of leisure as fencing, tennis and show-jumping. We are then escorted to the Campo Pequeno bullring to see the matadors in their finery. But we don't stay long, as we have some athletics, basketball and football to watch before we snatch a few shots of the city at night and attend a masked ball.

In the final segment, a small boy and his respectably dressed female accomplice con some pedestrians into parting with some cash because the lad has broken a valuable vase on the pavement. An old man also seeks handouts and discarded cigarette butts, as he wanders into the park. Many gentlemen of his generation occupy the benches and, while they put the world to rights, others work on their allotments. A closing series of cross-dissolves harks back to the children we saw in the opening scene and reminds us that we all make the same journey during our all-too-short lives. 

Full of the dissolves, superimpositions, speed variations and montages that made the city symphony such a favourite among film-makers in the late silent era, this is a fascinating souvenir of the `White City' in all its glory. The final reels recall People on Sunday (1930), which was directed by Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer from a screenplay by Billy Wilder. But Leitão de Barros very much puts his own imprint on the form, as he anticipates the current docureality vogue in films like Chico Pereira's Donkeyote for spicing up the factuality with staged bits that reinforce the salient points.

A city symphonic coda closes Marília Rocha's Where I Grow Old, which takes us to the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte for a measured study of female companionship and aspiration. Rocha is best known for her 2009 documentary, Like Water Through Stone, which profiled some teenage girls in the Espinhaço Mountains of Minais Gerais province and there are echoes of that film's concerns in her feature bow. Indeed, the action often reveals Rocha's connection to the Teia collective that has also produced low-budget outings like Sergio Borges's The Sky Above and Clarissa Campolina and Helvécio Marins, Jr.'s Swirl (both 2011). 

More a mood piece and a character study than a conventional drama, the feature centres on Portuguese expats Francisca Manuel and Elizabete Francisca. Manuel has been living in Belo Horizonte for some time and has made a nice life for herself with friends Paulo Nazareth, Jonnata Doll and Wanderson Dos Santos. However, her routine is knocked off kilter by the younger and more vibrant Francisca, who has just arrived in Brazil and is staying in her old friend's apartment until she finds her feet. 

While wandering around the city, Francisca becomes intoxicated by the relaxed pace of life. She eagerly samples its food, music and customs and reaches the conclusion that she has finally found somewhere to put down some roots. However, all her talk about life back in the old country makes Manuel feel homesick and she begins to wonder if she's ready to call time on her Brazilian adventure. 

Inspired by the experiences of Rocha and Manuel, who had respectively spent time in Portugal and Brazil in their youth, this largely improvised saga provides an intriguing insight into the contrasting mindsets of the two countries and the expectations of their female inhabitants. Rocha also explores how the slight age gap between Francisca and Manuel alters their perspectives, as they discuss everything from work and play to motherhood and homemaking. No topic is off limits and Manuel often finds Francisca's views suprisingly frank. She also feels threatened by her habit of sharing intimate details, as she would rather withhold information about certain aspects of her life from even her closest friends.  

Although the odd conversation rambles, the first-time leads are creditably natural in front of the camera and ensure that the dialogue sounds eavesdropped rather than workshopped. Thais de Campos's interiors help set the tone of the action, while Francisco Moreira's editing is as laid back as Ivo Lopes Araújo's camerawork. Indeed, the latter enables Rocha to capture the sights and feel of Belo Horizonte, which should be billed alongside the stars, as its unfamiliar landmarks provide the ideal backdrop to the pleasingly unhurried, diverse and mature chatter between the perfectly matched twosome.

Made in 2010, António Ferreira's Embargo is showing to mark the 20th anniversary of José Saramago winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. Adapted from a homonymous short story, this cautionary tale has a darkly comedic undercurrent that keeps threatening to drift into Buñuelian surrealism. However, it is also rooted in a recessional realism that makes this feel like a cross between Alexander Mackendrick's classic Ealing comedy, The Man in the White Suit (1951) and Steven Knight's Locke (2013). 

When not working in a hot dog kiosk, Filipe Costa is conspiring with local urchins to steal the petrol that he needs to keep his battered Opel going during a fuel embargo. Business might be slackening off in the world of fast food, but Costa has developed a scanner that can record the contours of a foot to ensure that customers can find shoes that are the perfect fit. His buddy Pedro Diogo offers world-weary support. But girlfriend Cláudia Carvalho is too grounded to be swept away by pipe dreams and she keeps chiding Costa for telling daughter Laura Matos that they are on the verge of something big. 

Slightly spooked by an incident with his car radio switching back on to some choral music, Costa prepares for his big appointment with potential buyer Miguel Pinto Lopes. He drops Matos at school with the promise to buy her a rabbit. But, as he speeds along a deserted road, Costa inexplicably skids and wakes in darkness to find he is stuck in his seat. No amount of exertion can free him and he drives home to a rollicking from Carvalho for having her worried and for letting her down. 

Unable to explain what has happened, Costa drives to the snack bar. Diogo provides him with an empty bottle so he can answer a call of nature, but he can't pull his pal out of the driver's seat. He does break the news that Costa has been fired, however, and urges him to call Lopes, make his excuses and reschedule their meeting. Much to his relief, Costa gets a second chance. But he needs a spare part for his invention and Fernando Taborda will only take cash.

Having had his card swallowed during a tortuous attempt to use a cashpoint while still in his vehicle, Costa has to sacrifice some of his precious fuel to do a deal with Taborda. He makes it to Lopes's premises and persuades him to come down to the car park with his two assistants. But it's swelteringly hot and Lopes is less than impressed with Costa trying to give a demonstration from behind the wheel and he stalks away. Distraught, Costa calls Carvalho and asks him to apologise to Matos for not getting her a bunny. It was not for lack of trying, however, as he tries to flog his contraption the shady José Raposo for the price of a single rabbit.

Deciding to end it all, Costa drives to the coast and leaves a farewell message on Carvalho's phone. As he speeds towards the cliff edge, however, he swerves and the car gets stuck on the precipice. Fortunately, he is able to climb out of the car and he looks down to see a wild rabbit cleaning its paws in the grass. Picking it up and salvaging his invention, Costa begins the long walk home. He sees some kids in a scrapyard and trades his device for one of their push scooters and he calls Carvalho to tell her that he's coming home with a furry friend. 

Akin to the kind of yarn spun on programmes like The Twilight Zone and Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, this teasing road movie is open to a range of interpretations. It could be seen as an allegory of globalised capitalisms efforts to staunch entrepreneurial enterprise or a warning about the impact on daily life of the exhaustion of fossil fuels. Then again, it could be viewed as a cautionary tale about getting ideas above one's station and forgetting what really matters in life or a parable about the illusory nature of happiness in a world of alienating technology and instant solutions to nonexistent problems. 

Wherever the truth lies in Ferreira and co-adapter Tiago Sousa's taut screenplay, this is drolly played by Filipe Costa, as he tries to fathom what he has done to the universe to deserve such unjust treatment. The supporting players do their bit, but this is pretty much a one-man show, as Costa struggles to reach an ATM and strives for eccentric nonchalance in demonstrating his life-changing invention in the middle of a factory car park. Only he will know why he doesn't swallow his pride and show Lopes and Carvalho that he is mysteriously glued to his seat, but this isn't the kind of scenario in which logic plays a substantial part. 

In sharing the camera duties, Ferreira and Paulo Castilho frequently drain the frame of colour, while also emphasising Costa's sense of confinement as the things he craves slip further out of his reach. Moreover, Luisa Bebiano's production design seems to pitch Costa into a throwback version of the 1970s that might allude to the downbeat era before the Carnation Revolution. Yet, Luis Pedro Madeira's score maintains an air of joviality that makes Costa's plight all the more cruelly excruciating until he rediscovers his youthful innocence and scoots home in the cockamamieshly poetic denouement.

For decades, any discussion of Portuguese cinema has been dominated by the names of Manoel De Oliveira, João César Monteiro and Pedro Costa. However, the emergence of Miguel Gomes has given Lusophone film a welcome shot in the arm and documentarist Pedro Pinho takes cues from Gomes's exceptional Arabian Nights trilogy (2015) in making The Nothing Factory, an epic blend of agit-prop and avant-garde tropes that deserves to take its place in a surprisingly small canon of classic films about industrial relations that includes Sergei Eisenstein's Strike (1924), Jean-Luc Godard's Tout va bien, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's miniseries Eight Hours Don't Make a Day (both 1972), Martin Ritt's Norma Rae (1979) and Michele Placido's Seven Minutes (2016), as well as such British offerings as John Boulting's I'm Alright Jack (1950), Guy Green's The Angry Silence (1960), Gerald Thomas's Carry On At Your Convenience (1971) and Nigel Cole's Made in Dagenham (2010).

The film that The Nothing Factory most resembles, however, is Bernard Miles's Chance of a Lifetime (1950), which chronicles the efforts of the workforce at a plant making agricultural machinery to take over the day-to-day running of the business from its failing bosses. Scripted by Miles and novelist Walter Greenwood, this premise caused such a furore that the Ministry of Labour and the British Employers Confederation petitioned Clement Attlee's government to have the picture suppressed. Fortunately, Harold Wilson, who was President of the Board of Trade, felt that it wouldn't damage management-worker relations and used the 1948 Film Act to ensure that it was seen by the widest possible audience. Pinho can't hope for such high-level intervention, however, and those intrigued by this compelling three-hour docurealist enterprise will have to make their way to The ICA in London to see it. 

Following shots of the production line at the Fortileva elevator factory on the outskirts of Lisbon, we see machinist Zé (José Smith Vargas) leaving Brazilian girlfriend Carla (Carla Galvão) in bed so that he can join his workmates in preventing a truck driver from removing vital equipment from the premises in the middle of the night. Ignoring protests that the driver is merely doing his job, the workers rescue one machine from the van and agree to mount a vigil to stop management from getting away with any more underhand gambits.

Yet, when Mr Arlindo arrives the next morning, he has no idea what has been going on and storms off the site after feeding his goldfish following an angry phone call. While the workers check what is missing, a female boss arrives to introduce Luis and Marta, who are respectively the new production engineer and human resources manager. She tries to explain that the global economic downturn has prompted a drop in demand for lifts and hopes that the staff can understand that a degree of restructuring is, therefore, inevitable. Sensing they are being softened up for redundancies, the workers protests and the manager threatens to call the police unless they leave. However, union official Vasconcelos urges them to keep a token presence inside the gate so that they can't be locked out again.

While Carla's son, Mowgli (Njamy Sebastiao), is shown how to skin rabbits by Zé's father, Joachim (Joachim Bichana Martins), Italian documentarist Daniele (Daniele Incalcaterra) scouts locations around Lisbon, while a female narrator explains how the European employment bubble has burst because of the recession and cheap migrant labour. Huddling around a brazier, Herminio (Herminio Amaro) and Sandra (Sandra Calhau) join the vigil force before the workers report for duty the next morning and have nothing to do other than stand beside their machines or sit at their desks in defiant, but despondent silence. Eventually, games of football and pitch and toss breakout, despite the foreman urging everyone to look busy. After a while, Marta emerges from her office and summons Carlos (Carlos Garrido Santos) to discuss his severance package. Herminio implores Ricardo (Ricardo Gonçalves) not to sign anything and, as Zé is called in, he breaks down in frustration at the fact that he is powerless to prevent his livelihood from being snatched away.

Such is Marta's determination to settle matters with as little fuss as possible, she pays a visit to the nail bar where Carla works in the hope of getting her to convince Zé to accept compensation while there is still money available. But tensions are mounting within the workforce and Herminio (who was browbeating Boris [Boris Martins Nunes] with Rui [Rui Ruivo] for taking blood money) finds himself having to deny that he has sold out when someone lists the payment offers on a whiteboard outside the changing-rooms. Boris joins Zé at the snack bar and informs him that he plans to go travelling rather than frittering his life away and Zé is too preoccupied with his pal's travails to respond when Daniele asks if there is any way he can get into the factory to make a film about the decline of organised labour. 

Zé takes Mowgli fishing and they float on a raft on a grey afternoon, with the tweenager singing songs and questioning why clever fish would allow themselves to get caught when they could steal the bait and swim away. Back at the factory, Antonio is arguing with Rui about devising a plan of action, as they are simply occupying an empty shell unless they find a way of producing and selling lifts. Sandra is willing to stand firm, but admits that it is getting difficult to hear her three daughters complain of being hungry when she is being offered a sum that would help solve her problems. As the workmates bicker, Vasconcelos arrives with Daniele, who listens with interest, as the colleagues debate whether feeding a family counts for more than maintaining the dignity of labour. 

Persuaded by Vasconcelos that they need to declare a strike to give a semblance of legality to the sit-in, the workers prevent Luis and Marta from entering the factory and explain the situation to the policemen who comes to investigate. The union lawyer intervenes to keep things calm and the workers resume their peaceful occupation. Carla supports Zé's stance, but she is getting tired of struggling and hints that she is thinking about moving back to Brazil, even though she has just started a new job as a hotel maid (with a friend who had jokingly advised her that the best way to spice up her relationship was to serve supper in sexy lingerie). 

A deputation goes to the offices of the administrators, only to discover that they have moved out. Antonio (Antonio Cajado Santos) suggests that this eases the way for the workers to take control of the factory and start seeking orders. But, while Daniele reports back to the think tank sponsoring his film and tries to urge the strikers into discussing political topics rather than their domestic situations, an air of hesitancy descends, as the rebels contemplate their next move. While they ponder, Daniele attends a meeting of his sponsors and listens as various economists and academics debate the future of capitalism in an age of deindustrialisation and speculate about whether this represents a moment of catastrophe or opportunity. They struggle to achieve a consensus, although most agree that any system that rises up to replace capitalism will inevitably be based on class inequality because there will always be a division between those who supervise and those who produce. 

Away from this lively, if rather arch conversation, the Fortileva saga rumbles on. Needing money, Zé goes to see Joachim in his shack on the Tagus waterfront. He takes his son by boat into the marshland, where he shows him a cache of machine-guns that he managed to save after the Carnation Revolution in 1974. Zé shakes his head in bemusement when his father offers the weapons to ensure the bigwigs show the workers some respect. But, as he returns to the boat, Zé is flummoxed by the sight of a pride of ostriches stalking around in the reeds. He lets off steam singing in a bar with his punk band. But Carla isn't impressed by his antics and leaves early. Zé goes for food with Daniele, who tries to convince him to follow the example of an Argentinian factory that had become a profit-sharing collective. However, Zé has his doubts that Povoa de Santa Iria is a hot bed of revolutionaries. 

Returning home by first light, Zé clambers into bed to pleasure Carla. By the time he arrives at work, the workers are racing around the factory floor on palette trollies. But, they break into a song-and-dance routine when the secretary takesa call from a bossless factory in Argentina that needs 3000 tiltable elevators and will advance Fortileva enough money to buy materials and relaunch its machinery. One of the crew is dubious, but the others whisk him along in a musical interlude that feels like it has been imported from a neo-realist reworking of Stanley Donen and George Abbott's The Pajama Game (1957). 

On getting home with Carla and Mowgli, Zé asks if it would be okay to go to the pub. But he is disappointed when Carla says she wants to sleep on her own from now on. He is still feeling sorry for himself, therefore, when a meeting about how to respond to the Argentine offer descends into confusion about what roles people are to take on and how much they are to be paid for doing them. After a while, Zé storms out and Daniele rushes after him, only for Zé to push him to the floor for trying to manipulate his mates to look good in front of his French intellectuals. He explains that his fellow workers are not budding entrepreneurs, but are have-nots who just want to become haves as quickly and painlessly as possible. They stroll through the empty docklands and Zé shouts out to ask the world what Povoa has done to deserve its fate. Walking home, he leaves his motorcycle at the side of the road and gets the bus into work the next day, as he clocks in at the start of what he hopes will not be `an ephemeral adventure'.

Inspired by the self-managing rearguard fought by the employees of the Otis factory in Portugal and a 1997 stage work by Dutch playwright Judith Herzberg, this sprawling anti-drama owes much to Pinho's documentary sensibility. Yet, while it has been photographed by Vasco Viana on a grainy 16mm stock that positively shrieks `gritty realism', there's nothing grim or worthy about his approach to the prevailing economic climate or the state of labour relations in at a time of mechanisation and migration. Indeed, there is none of the soapboxing that one has come to expect from Ken Loach and, mercifully, Pinho and co-writers Tiago Hespanha, Luisa Homem and Leonor Noivo also resists th temptation to sentimentalise the plight of the workforce and their families. However, in exploring the relationship between cinema and socialism, Pinho affords a touch too much latitude to didactic documentarist Daniele Incalcaterra, whose own 2004 film, FaSinPat, had centred on a worker-controlled ceramics factory in Argentina. 

The largely non-professional cast wholly convinces, whether they are breaking into song or batting around provocative ideas in lively discussions that were improvised on the back of some extensive workshopping. The relationship between José Smith Vargas and young Njamy Sebastiao is touchingly portrayed and one is left wondering whether Carla Galvão will stay with Vargas for her son's benefit or give up on her European dream. Joachim Bichana Martins also catches the eye with his pent-up anger at the long-term failure of the Carnation Revolution and his unfazed reaction to the ostriches strutting along the riverbank. Not everyone is going to be beguiled by such left-field incidents. But this is a spirited exercise that is to be commended for its austerity, integrity and singleness of purpose.