I Only Rest in the Storm: Enchanting Postcolonial Blues in the West African Nation.
In Pedro Pinho's fifth feature, a Portuguese national engineer called Sérgio is situated in Guinea-Bissau, grappling with the intricate power structures of a postcolonial setting. A sex worker declares, "What repulses me the most are good men," a line that pierces the center of the movie's key investigation into western condescension and hypocrisy.
A Conduit for Listening In
His nonaligned role positions him as the prime observer of contemporary cross-cultural interactions. The plot centers on a debated infrastructure project, with residents divided over whether it signifies development or an environmental curse. These discussions are amplified by themes of destitution, corruption, and violence, suggested by the unexplained vanishing of Sérgio's forerunner.
"Scruples are a privilege," a local businesswoman reminds Sérgio, pointing out the pragmatic realities that define life in a fraught economic and social environment.
Blurred Boundaries and Personal Politics
His encounters involve a LGBTQ+ group frequenting a local bar, a microcosm presented as a welcoming community. However, his sexual fluidity is seen as paralleling a deeper noncommittal nature to life and his place within these groups. He operates between worlds, fully a part of neither.
The movie's extended, dialogue-driven scenes forego the visual concision of some contemporaries, but they create a warm and authentically human quality. By way of these meandering discussions, Pinho probes not just the postcolonial context, but also the filmmaker's own complicity as an onlooker.
A Bracing Finale
The film persistently grapples for its own position on weighty political questions. This search reaches its peak in a closing encounter where Sérgio yet again caught in the center, symbolizing his ongoing state of uncertainty. Despite this doubt, the director's underlying point is: private life is profoundly linked to power.
