The theme of Blood of Blood is familial bonds, poverty, and trauma. Through parallel shots and scenes, the film creates a feeling of claustrophobia and being in a cramped space. The soft lighting, and the tight space of Marcia’s house draws attention to the impoverished population in Portugal. However, the small space also functions to illustrate the tight bond between the family members, and the soft lighting emphasizes the close relationships in the family. The careful cinematography of the film reinforces the theme of family against the backdrop of poverty and life struggles. 

As the film takes place in the modern era of Portugal, there are still values connected to Estado Novo. The close familial bonds connect to Portugal's fascist propaganda, which reinforced the idea of family and the patriarchy. However, the film also illustrates an evolution of traditional family structures. Estado Novo stressed the importance of family roles and Marcia still assumes the matriarchal position of feeding and taking care of the family, but there is an absence of an authoritative patriarchal figure in the household. Beyond the historical connections of the film, the narrative places women in power. The cast is women-dominant and the narrative is driven by the actions of Marcia, Claudia, and Ivete. Blood of My Blood connects well with our exhbit’s focus because it sheds light on the evolution of Estado Novo’s ideology of domestic family life, while reflecting the consciousness of Portugal’s impoverished population.

The romances displayed in “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise” are separated by location and time in which the present day is unappealing and sobering. In contrast to the tiptoeing rendezvous between Gian Luca and Aurora in the 1960s, Middle-aged devout Catholic Pilar attends to the whims of an elderly Aurora where they dialogue in a deadpan manner. Other than Aurora and her maid Santa, Pilar has sheepish interactions with a man who is a tacky artist that tries to engage her in conversation about the futility of war as a pseudo-flirting tactic. Similar to the film’s nostalgic disposition, their romance does not go anywhere and remains virtually uninvestigated to the viewer in favor of Pilar seeking out deceased Aurora’s long lost love. The film in “Paradise Lost” inadvertently mourns a past Portugal where a loss of colonial power, Estado Novo and Lusophone African colonies, weakens the [ adjective ] of today’s Portugal. 

Aesthetically, the film entices the audience to prefer the spatial freedom of Mount Tabu compared to cramped present day Lisbon. The scenes in “Paradise Lost”, such as Pilar on the bus with her admirer and Aurora’s racist bites to Santa create a dull landscape that is further dampened with the contemplative black and white. The shots are much more zoomed in on the characters as they dialogue in the women’s respective apartments that suffocate the viewer. Rather than an intellectual critique on Portuguese colonialism, Gomes presents an exoticized oasis in “Paradise”. Under colonial rule, Aurora had a spacious farm between the long shots of dry plains and Mount Tabu. This reflects the larger idea of postcolonial Portugal that is restrictive for its inhabitants. Younger Aurora was only forced to go home due to the Colonial War, making Lisbon an inopportune home of grief to her now lost lovely settler lifestyle. 

As a Returnee, the Portuguese that formerly resided in Lusophone Africa now back in Portugal, Aurora was welcomed into an overwhelmingly unstable regime. The quips of westernization in Mozambique such as Aurora’s family’s lavish home and Gian Luca’s band of Lusophone covers of American pop hits exemplifies the delusion Portuguese settlers lived in that would soon cost. While on her final escapade out near the native villages with Gian Luca, they are caught by one of his band members. As the men tussle, Aurora shoots and kills him. Elderly Gian Luca narrates that the murder was the precursor to the Colonial War as the native Mozambicans were blamed. The political landscape of Lusophone Africa allowed for blissful ignorance amongst its white Portuguese inhabitants. The greed of the authoritarian regime and brewing Colonial war seemed far removed from the whims of their love affair.