Foreign Land (1995) by Walter Salles - A sensitive movie about a several political time

Foreign Land or as in the original name Terra Estrangeira is a movie directed by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas. This movie is a consequence of the brazilian migratory movement during Collor government. The film's tells us a story about two brazilian citzens that ilegally came to Portugal. Besides all that, Terra Estrangeira is a very sentimental piece of art that dives into different topics like grief or human relationships.

The story presents us the two narrators that eventually meet as the story follows, Paco (played by Fernando Alves) and Alex (played by Fernanda Torres). 

Paco is a young adult, after suffering with the dead of his lovely mother, he looses his faith in founding a future in brazil  and decides that he is going to live in Spain, his mother hometown. On his ilegal way to Spain, he ends up in Portugal and meets a girl named Alex. Alex ia another brazilian girl who has recently lost her job and boyfriend and with a hopeless heart, decides to follow Paco. Together, the young duo goes between crimes and love above Lusitanian land in order to survive.

"- the more the time flies the more i feel foreign,the more i get conscious of my accent, of how my voice can be offensive to people"

Is an amazing screenplay able to get everyone mesmerized, i think that there is a type of beauty that only B&W films with poetic monologues can express. 

There are strong references of old french cinema in this movie. We can clearly see Walter inspirations in here and also see how Walter Salles found his true self during his career. But something that is part of his filmography since his first film Terra Estrangeira  is the fact that he is always doing very melacholic films about hard political times  or uhuman living situations and in this movie we can see the beggining of it all. 

Foreign Land in fact makes you feel like a foreigner, everything in that film is put as something unknown, puts the spectator in the middle of crazy impulsive relationships just like the story the movie carries. It's a story about immigrants, immigrants that see each other in a situation that all they need is to survive, so urgently that they don't even feel the urge to lactually live inside. They need a roof but not a safe lovely space. Fear guides them to drastic measures over their life, moved by two strong instincts: love and surviving.

"-I want to go back home so bad"

"-Where is your home?"

"-I dont know, not here surely"

Such a movie with such an ending, this play is capeable of destroying anyone, the human view above the ones who were left alone by the society, is a way of indentifying the living soul seen as lost.

I loved the following story and it's ending, some tears even could get of my eyes. Fernanda TOrres is such an actress, the part when she sang, oh i wasn't on earth no more.