Saudade is an elegiac story about three young people, whose fates are inextricably linked by the beacon of the local lighthouse on a remote island off the coast of the Australian state of Tasmania. United by their longing for genuine human connection, they rediscover the power of emotional intimacy and explore the myriad layers of love, friendship, loss and desire. With one of them harboring a secret that will challange their understanding of the world and their place in it, they are forced to navigate on hitherto unexplored waters of existence.
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The Portuguese word ‘saudade’ (which has no proper English translation) describes a bittersweet nostalgia for things, places, persons, past, present or future, real or fictional, scented with a mixture of our memories, dreams and desires. One might say accepting this feeling is coming to terms with being human. In this story, one of our heroes, Peter, experiences this emotion in a more acute way than most of us. Although not revealed to the viewer until the final section of the film (apart from a few ambiguous hints), through a unique and unexplainable rift in the fabric of time and space, his body changes shape now and again, reverting back or forward to his past or future selves, every time there’s an Aurora Australis display on the skies.
Although his mind continues to experience time in the linear way we all do, these transformations do not only come with a bodily change. The emotional and psychological residue of each respective phase in Peter’s life will be forever tainting his present day experiences, thus after an innumerable amount of changes, all his past and future memories, desires, thoughts, feelings and real life experiences will become entangled and impossible to separate. When in a teenager’s body, the loneliness and dread of old age will still be lurking in the corners of his mind, for he has already experienced them. What should be a time of recklessness, exuberance and desire, is now paired with a hint of wisdom, a tinge of regret and a sting of bittersweet nostalgia that could only be understood by someone who has already confronted his own mortality.
When two strangers become an essential part of Peter’s life, he re-examines his condition. Is this a curse with no salvation in sight, or a gift to see beyond normal human experience and perhaps, to gain knowledge of secret truths and insight to the workings of the universe? If we are granted access to our other “selves”, to experience a more complete “us”, would we know more, desire less, live more fully? And what about love? Would it still maintain its power, this greatest of all mysteries, when exposed to such scrutiny?
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