Spectateur Éternel

Spectateur Éternel é uma obra que por um lado nos faz regressar ao clima (luminotécnia, ritmo de montagem etc.) de obras iniciais de Rui Calçada Bastos (não faltando a figuração do próprio autor) por outro, recorre à subtilíssima montagem de um dos fundadores do romantismo [1] figurando um homem que, preso no seu quarto, viaja pelo mundo exterior e interior a partir de estimulos banais de tudo o que o rodeia; finalmente, esse quarto (ou quartos de uma só casa) e a cidade que dele se avista são dominados pela veloz sombra dos aviões partindo ou chegando do mundo. Tudo se passa num espaço insonorizado, a voz que se ouve, lendo o texto no seu original francês, soa como dentro da cabeça do protagonista.

“The latest work of Rui Calçada Bastos, the film Le spectateur éternel (2016), is almost like a summing up of his work until now. It includes travelling and the acknowledgement of home at the same time. After years of extensive travel or constant displacement, he has returned to his hometown of Lisbon. While having arrived, he cannot escape the very impulse, which has been guiding his works since the beginning, making a virtue out of homelessness. Having always been on the move, he finally decides to stay at home and ventures on a journey in the confines of his room. We never see the wandering inhabitant, but the lens of the camera shows us that his eyes take delight in the sensations of the room, the armchair, the play of reflections of the moving sun on the walls and only occasionally venturing to the window, contemplating the fleeting shadows cast by passing airplanes over the facades of the neighbouring houses. A kind of travel that he has left behind. “