Purple and blue: Memory, capitalism and ecological collapse in Flores

Abstract

The ecological landscape an individual, and by extension a community, inhabits is an influential and integral aspect of their experiences and cultural practices in life. But today, capitalist activity continues to cause major ecological collapse and, consequently, mass migrations. This article examines how the Portuguese short film Flores explores a time of ecological apocalypse in two ways. In the first, personal and collective memory of a land before collapse enables inhabitants to hold onto their homes and, in the second, global capitalist forces combine to create a loose form of ecological ‘recovery’.