Terra de Ninguém / No Man’s Land (PT 2012, Salomé Lamas)
PT 2012, D: Salomé Lamas, 72′, Doc, OV with Englisch subtitles, DCP
In Lamas’ debut feature, Paolo de Figueiredo (66) reports on killing. As a young man, he joins the colonialists’ army during the liberation wars in Mosambique and Angola. Following the Carnation Revolution in 1974, he starts working as a CIA mercenary in El Salvador, eventually murdering on behalf of the anti-basque underground organisation GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación). The insolency of those killings – in Angola, “there were no hostages, just corpses“ – is mirrored in Paolo’s report. Paolo delivers neither confession nor admission, but tells the tale of his biography as a killer remorselessly and uncritically. He says that was never bribed, although money did always come into play. And all of the victims deserved to die, that goes without saying. Longing for the former blood frenzy, Paolo is driven to peacuful Portugal’s emergency rooms to smell the „sweet smell of blood“ once again.
The simple order of the narrative situation – Paolo himself, a fixed camera shot, a chair and a plain room – pairs with a complex treatment of the premises of documentary narrative: authenticity, testimony and historical truth. Their reliability and inevitability is problematised by Lamas in an at first sight ostensibly unremarkable tale, in which history and stories are intermingled.
16 April, 9 pm – UT Connewitz – € 6,5 (5,5 red.)
Trailer
