The first piece in Susana de Sousa Dias’ extensive visual archaeology of the oppressive Portuguese dictatorship simultaneously releases the images’ souls from the constrictions of their original use – war reports, newsreel propaganda, political prisoner records – while underlining the deadly solemnity aching beneath even the most placid or vibrant moments. With minimal, meaningful tracts of silence, slow motion, and the heavy, yet hollow dissonance of the soundtrack, the haunted forms materialize as if just thawing out from a secret past into our present, politically-complex moment. Gracefully disrupting the direction of power with the simplest of means, she draws out the intricate humanity on both sides of the camera.