É NA TERRA NÃO É NA LUA

Halfway through Gonçalo Tocha’s transporting new film É na Terra Não é na Lua, one of the inhabitants of Corvo calls his hometown the “farthest place in Europe possible,” the only village on a tiny speck of the Azores that is nearly as far from the capital in Lisbon as it is from the one in Washington. Even that feels like a bit of an understatement to describe an island of seventeen square kilometers with a population of roughly 450 people, a place that feels just as remote in time as it is in place—a deserted, forgotten land stranded in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

É na Terra Não é na Lua (the title translates to It’s the Earth Not the Moon, taken from a headline about the island from an old newspaper story) opens on a creaky boat making its way across the blue sea towards Corvo, a reminder of Tocha’s first film Balaou, about a nautical voyage he took from the Portuguese mainland to the Azores, his mother’s homeland, after her death. In a voiceover conversation with his sound technician, Dídio Pestana, Tocha discusses his plans for the next two years, to capture “every face” of the distant island, a lofty goal that results in this wandering, touching film that is part documentary, part travelogue, but most closely resembles a personal journal in cinematic form.

The movie unravels at a leisurely pace, with long shots of the stark landscape of Corvo—mostly composed of the Caldeirão, the gaping crater of an extinct volcano—and the cream walls and red roofs of the town’s scattered buildings. As Tocha gradually assimilates into island life, we grow to know the island turn-by-turn as well, meeting new faces—the cheesemaker, the pig butcher, the air traffic controller—who become familiar. An air of nostalgic melancholy pervades the film, as the townspeople describe the centuries-old traditions being replaced by the plodding modernization that manages to reach even this far-off corner of the continent.

But É na Terra Não é na Lua is about more than just a search for lost time. It is a form of acceptance that as the world flattens out, even the remotest places come to seem more and more alike, with their discos pulsing with rumbling house music and earnest television news reports and gossip magazines. Gone are the years when islanders would have to survive for months over the winter without seeing a ship come to dock—a ferry service to the neighboring island of Flores was inaugurated in 2008.

The film is tied together by scenes of an old woman knitting a wool hat for Tocha, one based on a design brought back by whalers from America long ago, here emblazoned with “Gonçalo Corvo 2008” across the brim. As she slowly works the yarn into shape, she reminisces about the past, about the dying practices that once united the people to the land, the farming, the sheep and cattle husbandry, the rockets that used to mark whale sightings. É na Terra Não é na Lua ends, naturally, with Tocha donning the completed cap, becoming, at last, an honorary Corvo-dweller. Nicolas Bouvier wrote in L’Usage du monde that “One thinks that one is going to make a journey, yet soon it is the journey that makes or unmakes you,” a sentiment that feels truer than ever here. There is a special pleasure to the immersion of this film, a small and tempting peek at a way of life that seems distant in its specifics yet remains so very close to our own.

É na Terra Não é na Lua runs through Thursday at Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, New York. Image courtesy of Gonçalo Tocha.

“É NA TERRA NÃO É NA LUA”_trailer I from Gonçalo Tocha on Vimeo.

Esteban Gomez Finds Creatives a Home

With years of experience in the fashion industry, the Creatives Agent at Compass offers designers, photographers, stylists, models, and others a new approach to find a place to call home.

The Last Magazine Celebrates the Fall 2019 Issue

The cover story of our Fall 2019 issue is a love letter to New York City by photographer Dan Martensen and stylist Clare Richardson starring one of our favorite models of the moment, Binx Walton. For our launch party, we packed into Lola, one of the East Village’s newest hotspots, for an all-night dance party […]

Peter Ash Lee's New Magazine 'Burdock' Celebrates Asian-American Talent

Named after a root vegetable common to Asian cuisine, photographer Peter Ash Lee’s new magazine and digital platform celebrates Asian-American culture in an attempt to welcome a more diverse group both in front of and behind the camera.

Hans Neumann's Berlin Skaters

In an exclusive photo essay and “video poem,” the Peruvian photographer and director explores his family’s ancestral home through the lens of a group of young skateboarders who reflect the vitality of a new generation of European youth.

FUMI NAGASAKA STARTS A 'TEENAGE RIOT'

In her second book, the Japanese photographer captures the individual personalities and æsthetics of four adolescent girls in their hometowns in a collection that is both intimate and anthropological.

RO KWON ON CULTS AND YOUNG LOVE IN 'THE INCENDIARIES'

In her propulsive début novel, ten years in the making, the author ponders the unfathomability of others in the tale of a young woman who joins a cult.

MARTIN ZÄHRINGER GOES FISHING WITH JOHN BAKER

In his first book, the London-based photographer documents every facet of the life of a Barbadian fisherman with whom he felt an immediate kinship, acting as both visitor and companion.

JONAH BOKAER'S FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY

The collaborative, media-mixing contemporary choreographer celebrates fifteen years of his own company with a retrospective program and world premiere to look back while moving forward.

MARIO SORRENTI SHOWS A NEW SIDE OF KATE MOSS

In a new book of previously unreleased photographs, the famed photographer spotlights the iconic model’s innocence from their days of youthful love.

ROMAN MEJIA SHINES IN A NEW GENERATION OF DANCERS AT NEW YORK CITY BALLET

As the company makes its way through tumultuous times, the eighteen-year-old demonstrates the promise of a rising young crop of dancers with his clean lines and bounding jumps.

NEW YORK BY THE LAST MAGAZINE: VICE IMPACT PUBLISHER KATHERINE KEATING CHANNELS YOUTH ACTIVISM TO CREATE CHANGE

In an era of flourishing youth activism, the politically-minded advocate is harnessing the tools of social media and the internet to effect positive change by a young generation through direct calls to action.

NEW YORK BY THE LAST MAGAZINE: AUTHOR ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN SAYS WRITING IS LIKE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME

In her novel and short stories, the Staten Island-based author probes the border between science and literature with discomfiting tales about the body and its relationship to the perilous world around it.

HERMIONE HOBY'S 'NEON IN DAYLIGHT' REINVENTS THE NEW YORK NOVEL FOR A NEW AGE

In her début novel, the young British author ponders questions of selfhood and power dynamics in a thoughtful bildungsroman set during a sweltering New York summer.

ADWOA ABOAH HOSTS OUR TENTH-ANNIVERSARY PARTY WITH BURBERRY

Take a look at our tenth-anniversary celebration with Burberry at Radegast Hall in Brooklyn, hosted by our latest cover model Adwoa Aboah.

KANAZAWA

Photographer Marie Zucker was given rare access into an okiya, or boarding house, in the Japanese city of Kanazawa, where she captured these reflective images of geisha-in-training.

THE LAST WORD: ICEBERG

The Arctic ice pack puts the freeze on a teetering relationship in the latest edition of The Last Word, our ongoing series of original short fiction.

THE LAST GIFT GUIDE 2017

Our annual selection of gifts for you and yours, including everything you can imagine from a silk toothbrush on up to your own private island.

DAVID HALLBERG ON INJURIES AND INSECURITIES

In his new memoir, the celebrated principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre recounts his intense childhood training, joining the Bolshoi Ballet, and the arduous yearlong rehabilitation after a nearly career-ending injury that gave him a new perspective on his talent and the art form.