Pitoes, a village of Barroso
Encyclopedia
Pitões, aldeia do Barroso – Pitoes, a Village of Barroso – (1979) is a Portuguese
documentary
feature film
directed and produced by Ricardo Costa
.
, "Homem Montanhês" (Mountain Man). It portrays the inhabitants of a remote village in northern Portugal, in the mountain chain of Barroso
, where the villagers maintain secular traditions such as communal cooperation. The result is an intimate narrative with no plot.
It is an ethnographic film
that could be called visual anthropology
. Such films were introduced into Portugal in the sixties and salvage ethnography
flourished in the seventies following in the tradition of Nanook of the North
, by Robert Flaherty.
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
directed and produced by Ricardo Costa
Ricardo Costa (filmmaker)
Ricardo Costa is a Portuguese film director and producer.Most of his filmography consists of documentary films, many of them being contaminated by fiction...
.
History
This film is the second part of the tetralogyTetralogy
A tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works, just as a trilogy is made up of three works....
, "Homem Montanhês" (Mountain Man). It portrays the inhabitants of a remote village in northern Portugal, in the mountain chain of Barroso
Barroso
Barroso is a region in the North of Portugal. It comprises the municipalities of Montalegre and Boticas....
, where the villagers maintain secular traditions such as communal cooperation. The result is an intimate narrative with no plot.
It is an ethnographic film
Ethnographic film
An ethnographic film is a documentary film related to the methods of ethnology. It emerged in the 1960s as an important tool for research in the domain of visual anthropology, when filming human groups in society...
that could be called visual anthropology
Visual anthropology
Visual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media...
. Such films were introduced into Portugal in the sixties and salvage ethnography
Salvage ethnography
Salvage ethnography is a term used by anthropologists beginning in the 1960s used as part of a critique of 19th century ethnography and early modern anthropology. The term was coined by Jacob Gruber, who identified its emergence with 19th century ethnographers documenting the languages of peoples...
flourished in the seventies following in the tradition of Nanook of the North
Nanook of the North
Nanook of the North is a 1922 silent documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty. In the tradition of what would later be called salvage ethnography, Flaherty captured the struggles of the Inuk Nanook and his family in the Canadian arctic...
, by Robert Flaherty.
Synopsis
Sheltered from the cold winds which blow across the mountains, on a green valley of the Barroso chain, in Trás-os-MontesTrás-os-Montes (region)Trás-os-Montes was one of the 13 regions of continental Portugal identified by geographer Amorim Girão, in a study published between 1927 and 1930.Together with Alto Douro it formed Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro Province.- See also :...
, Pitões da Júnias is one of the last Portuguese villages keeping in activity a system of mutual help, of communal management and exploration of collective patrimony: the village council, the bread oven, the shepherd, the cattle fields, the “ox of the people”.
In this old community, built on granite rocks, live people who have ever lived there and others: old emigrants from everywhere in the world, who built their lives abroad but decided to spend their last days in the place where they were born. Here they left friends, children and grand-children, with whom they enjoy spending their time telling stories and talking about life. Besides, there are literate children in the village now, playing the game, sliding timidly into the story.
To survive is to know how to face violence, how to live with it: how to kill and flay a lamb, for instance, or how to live with another kind of violence, more eloquent: a giant’s fight, the kind of fight we see between the village bulls. It is impressing. It explains the open smile of the ambassador of the US, who came here as a simple visitor. From one situation to another, from shot to shot, a portrait of everyday life is drawn, of unique and secular moments, still older than the faces of the men who live in this place: vulnerable, threatened in their wealth, vanishing in the mirror. Living people, they live in a fainting world, where time flows softly away, like the slow waters of the river. Just their portrait will be left.(Cit. producer press-release).
Credits
- Production year – 1979
- Format – 16 mm colour
- Length – 86 minutes
- 2nd feature film of the tetralogy, "Homem Montanhês" (Mountain Man)
- Production: Diafime with R.T.P. (Rádio e Televisão de PortugalRádio e Televisão de PortugalRádio e Televisão de Portugal, S.A.,commonly known as RTP, is Portugal's public service broadcasting organization. It operates four terrestrial television channels and three national radio channels, as well as several satellite and cable offerings....
) - Director – Ricardo CostaRicardo CostaRicardo Costa may refer to:*Ricardo Costa , Portuguese*Ricardo Costa , Portuguese*Ricardo Costa *Ricardo Valter da Costa, Brazilian footballer*Ricardo Mion Varella Costa, Brazilian footballer...
. - Collaboration – Prof. Viegas Guerreiro, Parque Nacional da Peneda-Gerês, C.M. Montalegre
- Laboratory – Tobis PortuguesaTobis PortuguesaTobis Portuguesa was created on June 3rd 1932, in order to support and foster the development of Portuguese cinema, goal that kept during its 75 years of activity.-History:Tobis originally focused its activity on film production and lab processing...
- Location – Pitões das Júnias
- Premiere – RTP, 1979
- Festivals – 10th International Film Festival of SantarémSantarém, PortugalSantarém is a city in the Santarém Municipality in Portugal. The city itself has a population of 28,760 and the entire municipality has 64,124 inhabitants.It is the capital of Santarém District....
(Portugal, November 1980), 10th Internacional Film Festival of Figueira da FozFigueira da FozFigueira da Foz , also known as Figueira for short, is a municipality in the Coimbra District, in Portugal. It is located at the mouth of the Mondego River, 40 km west of Coimbra, and sheltered by hills ....
, (Portugal, 1981)
Bibliographic references
- O Cais do Olhar by José de Matos-CruzJosé de Matos-CruzJosé de Matos-Cruz is a Portuguese writer, journalist, editor, high-school teacher, investigator, encyclopedist. From 1980 to 2010, he works at the Cinemateca Portuguesa , in Lisbon...
, Portuguese Cinematheque, 1999 - Ricardo Costa and the flowing pictures, article by José de Matos-Cruz
External links
- Pitões. Aldeia do Barroso – producer’s web page (English, French and Portuguese)