
Rich Hill
2014

2015
Director
João Pedro Plácido
Runtime
78 minutes
Average Rating
No ratings yetSynopsis
At Uz, an isolated hamlet in the northern mountains of Portugal, four generations live together in a group of around fifty people. When life is rough, solidarity is of the highest order. Everything else is left in God’s hands. They could have emigrated, like so many others, but chose to stay and keep their ancestral way of life, away from the racket of modernity.
Overall Score
Limited
Category Breakdown
LGBTQ+ Representation
The film focuses on a traditional romantic framework between a man and a woman. It does not feature non-cisnormative identities or narratives that critique heteronormativity.
Gender Representation
The narrative depicts traditional communal roles within a multi-generational household. It leans toward conventional interpersonal relationships within a rural setting without subverting gender hierarchies.
Racial & Ethnic Diversity
The cast reflects the homogeneous ethnic composition of a remote Portuguese mountain hamlet. The film focuses on the ethnographic reality of this specific, localized population.
Religious & Cultural Diversity
The community relies heavily on religious faith, leaving their lives in God's hands. The film values traditional stability and ancestral continuity over secular or progressive frameworks.
Disability Representation
There is no evidence that disability, neurodivergence, or chronic illness serve as central character drivers or significant narrative elements in this documentary.
Strengths
Areas for Improvement
AI Analysis
*(Be)Longing* functions as a poetic, ethnographic study of a vanishing way of life in the Portuguese mountains. It prioritizes the preservation of ancestral norms, religious faith, and traditional social structures over contemporary identity-based discourse. The film's strength lies in its observational documentation of communal solidarity and human connection to place. It captures a specific cultural heritage through a meditative lens. However, the work lacks engagement with intersectional themes. By emphasizing the continuity of traditional institutions and homogeneous regional identities, it avoids the systemic subversion often found in modern progressive cinema.

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