Béatrice Gross
The melancholy of Rui Calçada Bastos, tinged with
subtle irony and a veiled sensuality, seems to suspend time, and make it spin
around itself as if in a stasis.
The simultaneous use of fast forward (on one hand) and slow motion (on the other
hand) seems to expand until the pictures turn almost eerily still: only in the
shivering of the leaves is the fast forward noticeable while the slow motion
is difficult to notice in the waves, since the woman remains still. Together
they account for a fixed emotional landmark in an artificially animated context.
Stripping video of its usual, emotionally facile trappings, It's not romantic
to be romantic gives its medium a physical resistance, and appropriately
treats us with the redeemed brute force of motion pictures. [...]
Béatrice Gross in Cross Magazine
http://www.crossmagazine.com/art_i2.htm
