Portuguese directors do this: they turn on cameras, fix them on a scene and wait.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
The idea is, probably, that sooner or later something will be transmitted to the spectator: art, impressions, the deep sense of life or more. Then we can't forget The Professor, Manuel de Oliveira's style. But not everyone can be de Oliveira. While often in Oliveira's is contemplation, in other's is pretentiousness. A ridiculous one.
So, sadly, most of the times spectator receives a boring sensation, increased by the absence of dialogue and the poor quality of photography. In a Portuguese site, this movie is presented as "the end of the narration movies". And it's true. But there's a problem: if you don't want to tell anything (or if you're not able to), why making a movie?
It's impossible to tell something about actors: they do nothing at all, except moving around slowly. And when they speak (a rare event) you miss most of words just because of a terrible audio (a sin of Portuguese movies). But even this one is not a real problem, dialogues are functional to the movie: boring, no fantasy, nothing at all.
It's sad, but best Portuguese movies are the old ones: '60s, 50's or even before, black and white film. There are good modern movies too: but they are rare, so rare. And "A Zona" is surely not one of them.
Avoid at all cost.
