\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.tcocdn.com\/tco\/images\/My-Grandmother-Treloto%CC%81to%CC%81.jpg\")
<\/p>\n [ad_1]
\n<\/p>\n
Hoping to resurrect her late grandmother, J\u00falia, Catarina Ruivo combines family archives with rich visuals in a\u00a0non-fiction film which successfully immortalises a\u00a0cherished loved one. Old photographs of J\u00falia and her husband are printed out and carefully placed in beaches and forests; their black-and-white figures are cut out from the past and pasted into the present.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rita Dur\u00e3o reads J\u00falia\u2019s personal letters aloud. While we watch J\u00falia\u2019s friends and family speaking to her, making food for her, and even dancing with her, all in her absence\u2009\u2014\u2009they speak to an empty bed, and receive no response\u2009\u2014\u2009this narration gives J\u00falia a\u00a0sort of voice through which her own thoughts, fears, and desires are powerfully expressed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mozambique forms the backdrop for much of the film, in long, beautiful shots of lush greenery and the sun glinting on the sea.\u00a0<\/span>My Grandmother Trelot\u00f3t\u00f3<\/i> is a\u00a0world of beautiful nostalgic imagery, but it must be said that Ruivo avoids interrogation of her grandmother\u2019s paradisiacal experience of 1940<\/span>s\/\u201950<\/span>s Mozambique as a\u00a0white settler; the film therefore unfortunately risks upholding a\u00a0colonial narrative. These visuals do, however, make the film captivating through its long runtime, and function alongside the narration of J\u00falia\u2019s letters to make us feel as though we are viewing the world through her memory of\u00a0it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nGet more Little White\u00a0Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n