Arquivo

Film maker Manoel de Oliveira returns to his native city, Porto, a setting that he has used two times previously. The city inspired Working on the Douro River, his first film for cinema, and also, The Artist and the City, of 1956, a film that marked his return to the cinema after an absence of 14 years. Now the film maker has decided to film the city, not through the eyes of a documentarist, but through recollection. This is the city of his childhood that has survived only in memory, witnessed, through signs, in the lyrics of a song, and old photographs. “A documentary about the city would be impossible, for it is full of road works. These are memories of a life style and images from the past that, even though they belong to me, do not make up an autobiography”, says film maker Manoel de Oliveira. Nevertheless, he could not resist the temptation and decided to end this film with the same image that, seventy years ago, he used to open his first production.