Olhe bem as montanhas

“Look closely at the mountains!”: this imperative came from the artist Manfredo de Souzanetto during Brazil’s years of dictatorship. Mining activities were destroying the environment in the State of Minas Gerais in the South-West of the country. Through the editing, Ana Vaz draws a parallel between this region and the very distant Nord-Pas-de-Calais region in France, which was also marked by three centuries of mining. On one side, eroded mountains where the inhabitants are plagued by deadly landslides. Hollow and gutted, these mountains have become the receptacles of a ghostly memory. On the other side, in France, the traces of mining activity, at one time covered over, are now being redeveloped under heritage rehabilitation schemes and, paradoxically, the waste stacks have become mountains and reservoirs of biodiversity, where the frontier between nature and technology is now indiscernible. The filmmaker surprises us with each shot. Poetry takes precedence over any activist or environmental discourse – as in the sequence showing scientists measuring bats in the moonlight. The “look closely” steers the film towards details, towards visual and sound material. Yet, it is never disconnected from the political: a shot of the sky taken from the bottom of a ravine is enough to conjure up the ghosts of eradicated indigenous peoples, whose cave paintings nonetheless continue to exist. (Charlotte Garson)