Two Films of João Salaviza

Abstract

After a brief overview about aesthetic and dramatic common motives in Salaviza’s work, we will focus on the hypothesis raised by the Cátia Diogo’s audiovisual essay Rafa and David (2022). The essay juxtaposes two scenes in Rafa (2012) and Montanha (2015), in which the condition of the “operative image” (Harun Farocki) is revealed. Taking into account a number of ideas that are expressed by the formal strategy that this audiovisual essay takes, we will speculate about how, in the intertextual relation between these films, is possible to envision a change of course in the work of João Salaviza, towards a cinema of impermanence.