Venice Days screening - short review - REDEMPTION by Miguel Gomes

Four men in different time and place settings recall different stages in their lives and an event which deeply affected them. A genial mix of experimental essay documentary filmmaking and cleverly creative political satire. Miguel Gomes plays with the viewer’s perception of the archive imagery and the deep and sentimental voiceovers to imagine some plausible event that would have shaped the lives of four important politicians and made them what they ultimately become. In this way, he thematically recalls what we could call the ‘rosebud’ element from Welles’ Citizen Kane. In this sense, it also works as the recreation of an imaginative re-invention of the term ‘public figure’ in its most open definition.