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The Last Dive
(O Último Mergulho)

Directed by João César Monteiro.
With abienne Babe, Canto e Castro, Francesca Prandi.
Portugal, 1992, DCP, color, 88 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles.
DCP source: Cinema Guild

The melancholic, self-destructive pleasure principle explored across Monteiro’s mature films is crystallized in this lyrically rambling chronicle of two debauched nights in the life of two dreamers, an older and a younger man, who accidently meet while contemplating suicide on the shore of the Tagus River. Set largely in night clubs, cramped apartments and shadowy back alleys, Monteiro breaks from the tight interiority of his characters and mise en scène by staging extended, and at times seemingly improvised, dance scenes that allow his characters, who veer between verbosity and silence, to give non-verbal expression to their repressed desires.

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