“Jack’s Ride”, a Portuguese film, is, as its title does not indicate, one of those hybrid works in which fantasy and reality blend inextricably. In theory, it is a documentary about sixty-year-old Joaquim, who is trying to readjust to Portuguese life after spending more than twenty years in New York where he worked as a taxi driver and then a limousine driver. With his strange black hairstyle (wig?), which oscillates between Playmobil and Elvis Presley, and his flashy shirts, coats, and styles, Joachim is surprisingly reminiscent of a mafia figure. It looks like it came straight out of “The Sopranos.”
The impression is reinforced during one of the film’s rare and completely fictional acting scenes, which shows a moment in the character’s life in the United States. Joachim and an actor act out an argument scene. The very convincing taxi driver grabs his colleague by the throat and threatens him because he does not want to repay the loan. Which fully confirms our connection to the detective series. Joachim would have been a perfect second knife in Hollywood.
Highly pictorial depiction of urban areas and landscapes
His job as a taxi driver, cinematic in itself, is evoked in a distant way in a scene shot in a studio, where all the technical tricks are on display: Joachim drives a car with a projection of New York parade photos in the background. Overall, it’s a remake of the “transparency” process, which was ubiquitous in Hollywood films of yesteryear.
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Except for explicit incursions in the fiction, the film collides with the truth, causing fast-moving translations in the home with a different screen from the tampon aupres d’entreprises to justify the project – it is the image of the attendant. retirement. The film’s real success lies in the pictorial depiction of the urban settings and landscapes in which Joachim develops, highlighted using 16mm film, the almost square format, 1.33, almost still frames (with rare exceptions), and heightened colours.
Everything comes together to transform, literally and figuratively, the past of an ordinary man hidden in cars into a melancholy gesture reminiscent of Kaurismäki’s cinema and Hopper’s painting. Follow the director.
“Jack’s Journey” by Susannah Nopper. Portugal, 2021, 1:10 am, view on-tenk.com.
