Immersion

Colossal Youth (2006) - Costa





For two and a half hours, we follow Ventura, an eldery resident of Lisbon's slum known as Fontainhas, as he visits his various 'children' and have lengthy conversations with them. Costa concludes his trilogy with this tall, erect man in a dark suit and white shirt in almost every frame. This DV shot film is remarkably beautiful. As with his other two 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. Costa's docufilms are nothing like I've experienced before and Colossal Youth, with its poetry, is the most beautiful of them all.

In Vanda's Room Review

Ossos Review

Fontainhas

In Vanda's Room (2000) - Costa





It's probably the first time for me that I don't want to say much about a film that I just saw. Not because I don't have anything to say, but the film is so earnest, intimate, unique and undefinable, anything I think of saying sounds extremely trivial. I can just tell you what it's not. Even though it is about junkies in urban ghetto (Fontainhas in Lisbon, Portugal), it's not a poverty porn with pretty pictures. Yes, it contains some mesmerizing images. But I felt like an asshole taking those beauty screengrabs above because they don't justify this 3 hour film and its cumulative effect on me in any way. Gritty, grimy reality Costa captures with the least bit of sentimentality has no equal. The resilience of the inhabitants of Fontainhas has no equal.

My favorite segment is probably Vanda and Nhurro/Pango, her childhood friend in her tiny room- him asking her if he could stay with her a little bit, then them talking about choosing/not choosing the way of life they lead. Really beautiful stuff.

Ossos Review

Barebone

Ossos (1997) - Costa

There are two big questions I asked myself: What is cinema for? What's the truthful representation?, after watching Pedro Costa's Ossos, the first part of the so-called 'The Fontainhas Trilogy' and the only one shot on 35mm. From what I've read about him and Fontainhas so far, Costa was in transition from making films the typical way - big crew, money, equipment... the whole circus, to barebone, to get something more real, substantial, obscure yet concrete. In Ossos, characters barely talk even though there are constant chatters, noises of the city slum around them. Their hunched stature, sad eyes, small gait tell you as much information as in-dept urban safari documentaries. There are no big melodramas or triumphs in this part of the town in Lisbon. Of course, they have emotions, just like anybody else. They are just harder to detect. If anything, Ossos is an impression of a place deeply rooted in its people. The premise of the film resembles L'enfant by Belgian neo-realists Dardennes: young parents, a new born baby. But Costa's drama doesn't arise from two pitted people or the baby baiting. His scope is wider and his aim higher, reflecting these people's resilience, their refusal to die. It's a beautiful film. And I'm still working on the answers to the questions.