UBU

Ridiculous, cowardly, idiotic, cruel – this is how the main character of this film, as well as the key work of modern theatre it adapts – is typically portrayed: a grotesque Shakespearean anti-hero who, enthroned through murder, leads his kingdom to ruin. Paulo Abreu’s debut feature is full of visual ingenuity, amplified by the stylised black-and-white photography of Jorge Quintela (a recent collaborator of Rita Azevedo Gomes) and the Templar locations in Évora and Tomar. Epic, political satire and even musical genres blend in this vertiginous tragi-parody where classic cinema is renewed with unbridled energy. Ubu proudly displays its farcical status, yet its caricature of the abuses of power resonates with truth in today’s context: choose any of our contemporary tyrants or showmen and re-read the beginning of this text.