Just where Costa draws the line between fiction and reality, memories and present is difficult to decipher. His highly formalist approach doesn't help the matter either. But boy, it nevertheless creates a glorious cinematic experience. Vitalina arrives from #CapeVerde, a Portuguese colonial island off the cost of Africa, to attend her bricklayer husband's funeral. But she is three days too late. She emerges from the airplane, soaking wet & barefooted. She is greeted not by family, but a group of migrant workers working as a airport crew. They tell her, “Go back to Cape Verde, there is nothing for you here.” Vitalina's weathered face tells thousand stories. Her huge eyes reflect the darkness of the exteriors & sorrows inside. She becomes an iconic living statue in Costa's observations of the netherworld. As usual, Vitalina Varela is stunning to look at. Every frame is a work of art. The film gives the lives of its inhabitants the poeticism they deserve. #pedrocosta #vitalinavarela

La primera obra maestra de #PedroCosta, #LaSangre, llega de forma inédita a los cines de nuestro país en una nueva versión restaurada en 4K el próximo 24 de febrero.

https://noescinetodoloquereluce.com/2023/02/la-sangre-de-pedro-costa-llega-el-proximo-24-de-febrero.html

À propos de Où gît votre sourire enfoui ? de Pedro Costa

Au moment du montage de la troisième version de Sicilia ! par Jean-Marie Straub et Danièle Huillet, Pedro Costa tourne une “comédie de remontage” en filmant les deux réalisateurs.

https://doi.org/10.4000/leportique.2745

#cinema #PedroCosta #Huillet #Straub

In Vanda’s Room is the second film in what later termed as Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas Trilogy. This is the film Costa made after Ossos, his attempt at capturing the realness of the Lisbon’s slum & its inhabitants w/ heavy filming equipment & larger crew while imposing himself as one of them. He saw the futility of achieving that, gave up on large scale filmmaking & lived in the slum w/ a small DV camera, recording everything. The cinema has never been the same since. #portuguesecinema #pedrocosta

"You died a thousand deaths," a voice says. Ventura is a phantom, a ghost imprisoned in the past but thrown into the present. Pedro Costa's "Horse Money" (2014) is a striking film about memory and trauma, a film that lives off images that leave wounds where there used to be life. A slow-film must see!

#film #cinema #cinemastodon #filmastodon #SlowCinema #PedroCosta #Portugal #migration #loss #memory #trauma #history

For 2 1/2 hours, we follow Ventura, an eldery resident of Lisbon's slum known as Fontainhas, as he visits his various 'children' & have lengthy conversations with them. This DV shot film is remarkably beautiful. As with his other 2 in the trilogy, the film is an immersive experience: with its quiet protagonists and deliverately slow, leasurely pacing, you get to 'live in' with these souls in their darkness, listening to their stories. #PedroCosta #fontainhastrilogy #portuguesecinema #docufiction

Shot rapturously in monochrome with old timey music, O Sangue feels like watching a fairy tale story from the silent era. You can tell that Costa is a good student of old films- the lyricism in O Sangue evokes those of Epstein, Vigo, Tourneur, Mizoguchi and Bresson (especially Four Nights and a Dreamer). Costa's sodden poetic images and lost but determined souls have magical power to move you. #pedrocosta #portuguesecinema #film #osangue