A funeral procession emerges from the pitch-black center of a walled cemetery outside of Lisbon. Mourners move past the camera, but no one speaks of the deceased or of anything else. For the first 10 minutes of Pedro Costa’s latest, “Vitalina Varela,” wordless sound design and an immersive darkness settle in, the storytelling restricted to the aftermath of sickness and an unknown man’s last days.
Costa’s films often star first-time or other nonprofessional actors playing versions of themselves, with storylines reflecting their real lives, elements of fiction and documentary forming a seamless whole; as such Vitalina Varela plays “herself.” And as the film opens, and Vitalina arrives, she’s three days too late. The funeral was for Joaquim, the husband who abandoned Vitalina years earlier, and this three-day passage amounts to an anti-resurrection. Here, the dead stay dead.
Vitalina positions herself in the shadowy, crumbling hovel where Joaquim lived and died,...
Costa’s films often star first-time or other nonprofessional actors playing versions of themselves, with storylines reflecting their real lives, elements of fiction and documentary forming a seamless whole; as such Vitalina Varela plays “herself.” And as the film opens, and Vitalina arrives, she’s three days too late. The funeral was for Joaquim, the husband who abandoned Vitalina years earlier, and this three-day passage amounts to an anti-resurrection. Here, the dead stay dead.
Vitalina positions herself in the shadowy, crumbling hovel where Joaquim lived and died,...
- 3/26/2020
- by Dave White
- The Wrap
Vitalina Varela
Portuguese director returns to Fontainhas for his seventh feature, Vitalina Varela (which has been previously listed as the title Daughters of Fire). Starring the actress for which the film is named, she is joined by two other actresses from Horse Money (2014), Costa’s last feature, including Ventura and Isabel Cordoso (who was also in his 2006 film Colossal Youth). The project also influenced a recent art installation from Costa. Known for filming with non-professionals who are usually playing variations of themselves, while shooting on a micro budget in digital, Costa is Portugal’s premiere art-house auteur, ever since his 1989 debut Blood.…...
Portuguese director returns to Fontainhas for his seventh feature, Vitalina Varela (which has been previously listed as the title Daughters of Fire). Starring the actress for which the film is named, she is joined by two other actresses from Horse Money (2014), Costa’s last feature, including Ventura and Isabel Cordoso (who was also in his 2006 film Colossal Youth). The project also influenced a recent art installation from Costa. Known for filming with non-professionals who are usually playing variations of themselves, while shooting on a micro budget in digital, Costa is Portugal’s premiere art-house auteur, ever since his 1989 debut Blood.…...
- 1/7/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Pedro Costa's "long-awaited Horse Money (Cavalo Dinheiro) presents an associative hotchpotch of memories pertaining to the experiences of displaced Cape Verdians now living in Portugal," writes Michael Pattison in Keyframe. "Following on from Colossal Youth (Juventude Em Marcha, 2006), it again features his regular performer Ventura—this time a trembling bag of nerves moving from one eerily quiet room to the next of something resembling a mental hospital. Exquisite compositions and delicately delivered dialogue build to a cumulative tone-poem on the traumas felt today by an exiled people still coming to terms with the prolonged fallout of imperialism." We collect further reviews and post a half-hour Q&A with Costa. » - David Hudson...
- 9/7/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Pedro Costa's "long-awaited Horse Money (Cavalo Dinheiro) presents an associative hotchpotch of memories pertaining to the experiences of displaced Cape Verdians now living in Portugal," writes Michael Pattison in Keyframe. "Following on from Colossal Youth (Juventude Em Marcha, 2006), it again features his regular performer Ventura—this time a trembling bag of nerves moving from one eerily quiet room to the next of something resembling a mental hospital. Exquisite compositions and delicately delivered dialogue build to a cumulative tone-poem on the traumas felt today by an exiled people still coming to terms with the prolonged fallout of imperialism." We collect further reviews and post a half-hour Q&A with Costa. » - David Hudson...
- 9/7/2014
- Keyframe
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