This eloquent documentary, both lofty and terrestrial, follows the faceless vessels of globalization and evokes a pensive narrative of the human condition as filtered through global trade and the regimentation of nature.
A man leaves a red clay quarry in Brazil that saturates all its surrounding nature to board a cargo ship. He is accompanying the “mountain” that has been extracted from the Brazilian forest and will travel in the ship’s hold until Taiwan.
The opening, the account of a man’s dream, is like a warning: “he knew that his dream would become the nightmare of those who would follow…” and sets the tone of an allegory of reality. Like the mudslides that invade the imagination of the people they encounter, Romulo’s slow and melancholic voyage across the Pacific Ocean feels unreal yet inevitable. This story of disappearing land and mysterious languages is a poetic dive into the fog of absurdity, of man literally transporting mountains around the world.
74 minutes - in Mandarin, Uchinaaguchi, Portuguese / with English subtitles
Directed by: Simone Cortezão