From the 1990s onwards, the work of Rui Calçada Bastos reveals two main interests: the construction of the gaze through the film or photographic camera, and an interest in fictional narrative, in which the artist himself is often included as an actor. It's no wonder that the figures of the double and the mirror are frequently explored by the artist. The narratives in his videos and photographs mostly take place in urban environments, marked by the experiences of contemporary societies. Like unsolved riddles, they retain a wide margin of uncertainty, which is why semantic openness is itself an important artistic tool.

- Ambitious
, from 2007, seems to confirm this. It's a close-up of the hands of a handcuffed man entering a black car. The photograph doesn't reveal his face, but we know that it is Rui Calçada Bastos who plays the character, the same one who appears in a video of the same name, directed by the artist in the same year. The action is simple: a man in his thirties, dressed in a beige suit and black shirt, is arrested and taken to court in a police car. When he arrives at the courthouse, he is awaited by an expectant crowd, surrounded by - paparazzi
, and the narrative ends. While the crime committed and the final verdict are unknown, the feeling of frustration caused by the lack of information is compensated for by the camera's focus on something that comes to light without explanation, like the suspenseful moments of a - film noir.
The fact that, in this case, we are looking at a photograph, an image without movement, intensifies the sensation, forcing our gaze to converge on the detail of the handcuffed hands. Reflected in the car's mirror, the scene is doubled and takes on new meanings that appeal to our mood.