Opening hours for a bar in a small snowy town. Some are already drunk, some find their way to it to melt their bitterness ‘on the rocks’, others just need a place to stage their romance. They know each other and there’s a certain familiarity between them. But when each one’s drama reaches its peak things will feel like going out of control, making the characters blind to tolerance and start judging others for what they are. But when a drunk will accuse them all of ignorance, an apparently simple question will start haunting their minds: ‘when did it last snow in their snowy little town?’
‘A Dubious Night’ will make you feel like witnessing a dubious night indeed. The space builds up like a purgatory for the trapped characters. And then an interesting thing happens: director Nelson Oliveras will undress them of the power of choice but will not deprive them of their power of dreaming. So the young will present themselves as wild at heart and idealist while the old will look ‘over-dated’ and resigned and each will eventually preach for their side of truth fuelling the conflict ready to burst. But in the last moment everything is brought to calm by the beauty of a snow fall revealing the answer to the haunting question: ‘it snowed yesterday too’.
In Nelson Oliveras’ film the world is a purgatory in which a man is being thrown by his own ignorance. He will live his life guided by wrong landmarks which will make him feel like his life and actions are predetermined when in fact he has polished his own destiny out of his inner contradictions. The universe is not to blame and is not in debt to us. In fact everything it owes us is …a beautiful snow fall.
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