Most films revolve around people. They are concerned with exploring how these people act, think and feel. At the same time, there is a growing realisation that anthropocentrism will create ever more severe problems as long as instrumental reason continues to shape our relationship to the environment. While theory has responded to such questions with the concept of the planetary turn, cinema has produced such films as Cow by Andrea Arnold, Le quattro volte by Michelangelo Frammartino, or Terra que marca by Raul Domingues. Domingues shot his film in the hinterlands of Portugal. People appear, but only as one factor amongst others. Callused hands sow, weed, build and rake; stooped backs bring in the harvest. The gaze of the MiniDV camera gravitates toward the ground, catching sight of furrows in the soil, gullies caused by erosion, potato plants, weeds, a grazing horse, the imprint of tractor wheels in the mud. Tools and agricultural machinery feature just as prominently: a petrol-powered chainsaw, a plough, a mixing machine, a drum of liquid manure. Such precise observation of matter exerts a hypnotic pull....
