Using archival films and photographs, Still Life surveys the 48 years of dictatorship in Portugal. The film without words uses as its material news films, war reports and propaganda films, which the director has compiled into a skilful whole. The film brings to the fore preserved images from the time and theme delicate to the Portuguese. The pictorial material dating back to the dictatorship provides an interpretation of the present, leaving plenty of space for the thoughts of the spectator.
The key for interpreting the film can be reduced to its motto: an image has always another image hidden inside it. The film’s tempo and powerful music give time for thoughts: where does the meaning of the image lie and, in the end, how many of them there really are?