DECEMBER 17, 2024
Vasco Diogo’s experimental video is what we would love to call video-poetry. From the beginning until the end, the whole experiment has the purpose to get inside the viewers' mind and soul. This film reminded us of a poem written by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, one of America’s most valuable writers: ‘The world is a beautiful place/ to be born into/ if you don't mind happiness/ not always being/ so very much fun/ if you don't mind a touch of hell/ now and then/ just when everything is fine/ because even in heaven/ they don't sing /all the time (...).’
​
In ‘Walkspace’, Vasco Diogo proves once again that the world is indeed a beautiful place, one that combines the good and the bad, the poor and the rich, and the night and the day to make it a magnificent whole. It is hard to imagine this world without the bad parts, without the sides that are shaping the good shine bright like a diamond when a ray from the sun lands on it. The walks Diogo takes that result in this ‘magical mystery tour’ of Lisbon are not sugarcoating a story that needs to be shown only with the right sides. Here, Diogo presents the city as it is, with beautiful places and plane industrial zones that are never something one would intentionally look for.
​
The free jazz soundtrack is classy and makes this film stand out. The tour of the city is a little bit chaotic, and it is impressive how well the music goes with the visuals. The whole experience while watching ‘Walkscape’ is like painting yourself a neighbourhood you don’t know much about, but you let your feelings out through music. For us, it was a therapeutic experience going so deep inside a city we do not know very well, making us look at it as if it already was in our lives.
Diogo’s experimental short is like a walkthrough on a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Everything you see has a deeper meaning when zoomed out.
​
Review written by Vlad A.G