Light Drops
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| Light Drops | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Fernando Vendrell |
| Written by | Ian Swann |
| Screenplay by | Fernando Vendrell |
| Produced by | Ana Costa and Fernando Costa |
| Cinematography | Mário Masini |
| Edited by | José Nascimento |
| Music by | Nuno Canavarro and Luís Represas |
Production company | Cinemate |
| Distributed by | Marfilmes, Lusomundo (Mozambique) and AMC (Portugal) |
Release date |
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Running time | 100 minutes |
| Countries |
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| Language | Portuguese |
Light Drops (Portuguese: O Gotejar da Luz) is a Portuguese/Mozambican film by Fernando Vendrell.
Vendrell's film is set in the colonial Mozambique of the 1950s and tells the story of teenage protagonist Rui Pedro's growing awareness of the injustices of colonial Mozambique.
The story is set in the settlement of Bué Maria on the Pungwe River, in the central Mozambican province of Sofala.
The film premiered on 8 February in the Xénon cinema in Maputo and on 15 February in the São Jorge and Quarteto cinemas of Lisbon.
Vendrell's film is based on the short story “O Lento Gotejar da Luz” by Leite de Vasconcelos, a journalist and writer who grew up in Mozambique but left the country for political reasons
Synopsis
Rui Pedro is a fifty something man who returns to the ruins of the cotton plantation where he grew up in colonial Mozambique. In the almost silent opening to the film, Rui Pedro drives from one of the big cities of Mozambique, perhaps Beira, out to Bué Maria, where he spent his childhood and adolescence. There he finds the ruins of a house, which we later realize is the house in which he and his family once lived. Rui Pedro pitches camp by the river, where he encounters a young shepherd boy. Though the boy cannot speak Portuguese, Rui Pedro shares food and a cigarette with him. This meeting between the older white mana the young black boy foreshadows the relationship between Rui Pedro and Jacopo, the ferryman from his childhood. His visit recalls memories of his adolescence, and in particular a set of incidents that took place when he was fourteen and home from school for the summer break from school, dramatic incidence which would mark his life.
The son of Portuguese colonists living amongst a small community of whites at a remote outpost in the bus, Rui Pedro has grown up shuttling between two ways of life, the European mores of his family and the African traditions of the workers his father manages. His life has wavered between the two banks of the nearby Pungue river, between the culture of the white settlers and that of the black natives, between the boss and the slaves, between violence and peace, between love and passion.
After the Second World War, at a time when the other European powers were reluctantly making ready to decolonize, Portugal stepped up its involvement in its African territories. In Light Drops, as the colonial cotton company Rui Pedro's father works for forces through a bumper cotton harvest, much to the detriment of the local population. This exploitation at a general level is echoed in the relationship between Rui Pedro's cousin and his family's maid Ana, who is betrothed to Guinda, a local mechanic and froe. The violent end to their relationship foreshadows the violence to come in Mozambique.