“Lisbon is a city of countless revolutions”

Anyone who has ever visited the capital of Portugal is struck by several different features – it’s narrow, winding alleyways that weave steep downhills that eventually meet the ocean, with centuries of architecture scattered liberally throughout what was initially only supposed to be a small seaside town, but has grown into a city with some of the richest and most evocative history in the world, being the stage of some of Europe’s most electrifying moments of social and political activism. I have spent a decent amount of time there, and it is always an enlightening experience – it almost feels as if you cannot walk the same street twice, both physically and metaphorically, since there is always something new to discover, which is primarily what has made it a destination that stirs an abundance of curiosity in both tourists and locals alike. Few films have been able to capture this specific tone quite as well as Índia, in which director Telmo Churro, who has previously worked as an editor for prestigious Portuguese filmmakers like Miguel Gomes and Pedro Filipe Marques, makes his directorial debut, telling the story of Tiago, a lonely tour guide with anger issues stemming to his own shattered domestic life, who runs a comprehensive walking tour (done in conjunction with his eccentric father and his son, who would rather be anywhere else), aiming to showcase the history of the city through the various revolutions that have taken place throughout its existence. Naturally, there is more to this film than initially meets the eye, which is precisely what Churro aims to convey as he develops on these ideas, building a fascinating character study that leaps into the heart of Portugal’s past, proving to be quite an original and highly subversive experimental drama with many unique qualities that make it such a captivating, layered experience that takes us on an adventure through a beautiful city and its fascinating past.

Churro was presented with two options when conceiving of this film – firstly, he would approach Índia as a straightforward story of the encounters between a tour guide and his client as he takes her around the city, highlighting its locations and the history attached to these buildings. However, this would likely have led to something didactic at best, and dull at worst, which is not something that anyone involved in this film intended to have associated with them. The alternative option was more alluring, which was to produce a film that approached this story through the lens of a stream-of-consciousness narrative – there is very little exposition, and the voiceover narration that persists throughout the film is not supplementary to the plot, but rather does the opposite, complicating our understanding of these characters and what they represent. Taken at face value, the film is nothing particularly daring in terms of the story being told, but it’s the narrative structure that immediately indicates that it is something entirely different than anything we would have usually expected, which gives it such a subversive atmosphere. The tone also contributes to the enigmatic nature of the film – it exists somewhere between bleak existential drama and surreal dark comedy, with moments of bizarre humour punctuating a relatively serious work, which leaps around different subjects in its endeavour to cast as wide a net as possible over the human condition, a subject that the director sees as being the driving force behind this film, and the main reason it flourishes into such a subversive account of quite simple concepts. It’s not a film that is immediately easy to embrace, and we often find ourselves more bewildered by what it has to say than anything else, but there is something truly valuable about a story that doesn’t aim to offer us the easy answers, but rather gives us the time and space to develop our understanding of this challenging but poignant subject matter.

Despite being quite ambigious in how it crafts its characters and makes them into complex human beings, the film is quite an achievement when it comes to the central performances. Churro chooses a small ensemble of mostly unknown actors, most of them coming from the world of experimental art or academia, which lends the film a sense of gravitas, as we are not focused on seeing these major actors playing off one another, but instead privy to a more developed sense of characterization, where these performers deliver work that is intimate and quiet, but still resounding with exceptional velocity that makes them some of the most unexpectedly moving of the year. Pedro Inês is Tiago, a tour guide amid an existential crisis, which emerges through moments of frustration with his father, played by José Manuel Mendes (who is known within Portuguese academic circles for his work in preserving Portuguese history) and son Manuel, played by João Carvalho. The concept of three generations of men being the anchor of the film is not trivial – Portuguese culture is one in which generational divides are massively important, and while it is not a strictly patriarchal society, there is a lot of significance in using three male characters as the foundation of this story, not only in terms of religious allusion (could it be a reference to the Holy Trinity of the father, son and the holy spirit?) but in how it weaves together quite a compelling portrait of these men undergoing their crises of identity. However, the heart of the film is the only character not directly tethered to these men, but rather the person who inserts herself into their lives momentarily with Denise Fraga’s performance as Karen bringing so much soul to the film, drawing our attention to the smallest and most seemingly inconsequential details that persist at the heart of the narrative, for which she is one of the main catalysts. It’s a tremendous character study, and the quartet of leads are all exceptional.

There is an argument to be made that this film is essentially a glorified marketing campaign designed to showcase Lisbon as an attractive tourist attraction – but this is only a surface-level reading of the project, and does a major disservice to the elegant ideas embedded deep within Índia, which paint a vibrant, complex portrait of the human condition in its purest, most unfurnished form. Art and history are inextricably tied together, and while the majority of the art showcased in this film is restricted to architecture, the beauty is undeniable, especially knowing the context surrounding each building. Navigating a city with such a complex history, and hearing the stories (particularly told by those who were present for some of these major historical moments) is an unforgettable experience and one that Churro replicates quite well throughout this film. It’s a fascinating document about characters undergoing a voyage of self-discovery – perhaps centring the story around a tour of the city is quite obvious, but sometimes the most conventional methods allow for the more complex output, which is certainly the case for Índia, a film that requires us to look deeper than the surface. There’s a sense of profound artistry that drives this film, and Churro’s incredible insights help set the foundation, moving this film from being simply a whistle-stop tour of the city and instead forming it into a narrative about characters going on a journey, both physically and psychologically – you can even view this as a story that takes the scenic route through the human condition, allowing the innermost thoughts of these characters to interweave with the history of the city in which they find themselves, proving to be a compelling examination of human history in conjunction with culture, politics and social order, all of which are found throughout this film.

For those with a penchant for history, this film is a masterful examination of how buildings and streets absorb the past and preserve it for future generations, and Churro’s quiet, thoughtful approach makes Índia a wonderfully captivating experience. It’s an intimate film that takes its time to develop its fundamental themes, and it makes it very clear that it is not in any rush to get where it needs to be to achieve something special, which manifests in the quiet, intricately-woven story that layers on many compelling ideas while proving to be a solidly-crafted psychological drama about the correlations between one’s past and the history of their homeland, and how the two often inform one another in unexpected ways. It’s not a film that is always easy to comprehend, and it mostly relies on the audience’s willingness to engage with many of the fundamental themes that exist at the heart of the narrative – but the earnest sense of self-reflection, coupled with the nuanced, poetic storyline that delves deep into the heart of Portugal’s past through looking at the history of Lisbon, and the overall tone of the narrative lead to an invigorating, complex examination of the human condition, handcrafted by someone who seems to be well on his way to being one of the most intriguing contemporary auteurs. Índia is one of the year’s most unexpectedly profound works of humanist filmmaking, and we find ourselves being drawn into its hypnotic labyrinth of ideas without even a moment’s hesitation since there is something much deeper to be found throughout this film, and unearthing these mysteries are all part of the film’s incredible complexity.