A film-text by Eduardo Brito, “Declive” is a film to watch and listen to, soothed by the voice of Lula Pena. It is set in the windy, cloudy landscape of Scrabster in the northern chill of Scotland, a land’s-end observed from a house that stands by the sea. The house is dark and mysterious, a kind of reliquary from another age which holds stories and summons ghosts to help create memories of places and things. It is, above all, a film about returning and restarting, of absence and finiteness. The text exists not merely to illustrate the images, or the reverse: together they form two layers that create sometimes independent and sometimes symbiotic, or even contradictory, meanings. “Declive” marks Eduardo Brito’s return to Curtas, where he presented “Penúmbria” (2016), his first film as a director, in the Portuguese Competition. He also wrote the scripts for “O Homem Eterno” (Luís Costa) and “A Glória de Fazer Cinema em Portugal” (Manuel Mozos). (PC)