True to the huge reputation that comes with being the world’s oldest director — perhaps the world’s oldest working man — Manoel de Oliveira was still developing on finishing projects before dying at the age of 106 this past April. A few months after this unfortunate passing, we have access to the final piece (excepting a posthumous 1982 film, Memories and Confessions): One Century of Power, an attempt to chronicle his “view of the transformation of energy throughout the last century, these transformations that have changed the lives of all people” — specifically solar, hydro, and wind operations performed by Energias de Portugal.
Certain editing rhythms most explicitly recall Godard’s late work, while its quieter moments might remind one of James Benning’s oeuvre, and yet the flow at which Century moves — from silent-movie frantic to slow-cinema contemplation to documentary “realism” — makes it otherwise unclassifiable on any sort of auteurist scale. It also feels irrelevant when this piece is so moving in light of its maker’s passing: the environment, the elements, the people, the movement, and the music all building toward a note of palpable finality. Alongside a short making-of piece on the project (both via @whitecitycinema), it’s the most satisfying look into Oliveira’s working mind that we have.
Have a look at both right below: