The little stab in the heart one gets while standing in front of a place from one's youth, one in which a dear memory took place but which is now completely changed, is at the center of this film. It's a universal experience to anyone who has reached a certain age because everything eventually changes, and at age 93 Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira was looking backwards a very long way. He revisits the places from his youth in Oporto, and in this short documentary's strongest moments, shows what they've become, noting that what took place there long ago, like an innocent kiss with his girlfriend, now only exists in his mind.
It's a sentiment that when combined with the beauty of Oporto really could have resonated with me, but unfortunately, the way this was presented made it difficult to like. Oliveira's memories are deeply personal and random, and in most of what we see, they are reenacted in scenes that go on for too long, like a part of a stage play he saw with his mother, or the trio of guys talking about androgyny and dying at 40, or a woman going on about geisha, of all things. The production quality is not very good, maybe because of a limited budget, and the soundtrack is discordant (and yet we still see the back of a conductor for literally several minutes at the beginning). With a few exceptions I didn't feel much of the past evoked, or really much of the city explored, though there are a few nice shots of the bridge towards the end. Disappointing, but glad it was only 58 minutes long.
