Vitalina Varela

I'm divided into two, just like I was with the "Horse Money." What made Costa original was his uncompromising capturing of the banal and the random flow of life, and his ensuing intervention into our sensual/perceptual habits (Rancière). But starting with the "Horse Money," the randomness, ugliness, and messiness turned into well-planned, neat mise-en-scenes with perfect lightning. Plus, he started to fetishize the face, which wasn't there before. It looks like he is becoming a brand. Too bad.

Costa/Simões continue to demonstrate their superior singular visual mastery. Their chiaroscuro compositions are truly magnificent, and they are among a handful of modern film makers who create real painterly work, both in terms of their use of space and texture and their ability to produce affecting images that often insist on interpretation. Vitalina is a towering screen presence with a concentrated intensity, and her pained monologues directed at her dead husband are cathartic and moving.

Costa's latest zombie movie is composed of carefully constructed images that are perhaps his most remarkable yet, but the significance of what unfolds in slow motion here seems thematically a little slight, and leaves a feeling that he is sticking too tightly to what almost seems a formula. Still, his works do always leave a kind of lingering feeling, in part wondering how exactly he blends real and fictional elements to produce a mysterious evocation of lives lived in darkness and hardship.

Make no mistake, this is a masterpiece, the shots are monumental, the characterization the shots achieve is monumental, and the intense focus Costa maintains on the most marginalized people in the literally darkest corners of society is laudable and singular. Slow cinema rarely lends its services to such humanistic pursuits, and this is the rare film that can shake those of us endowed with privilege out of the comfortable cocoons we have made for ourselves, at least briefly.

Men can't even fix a damn roof. Expressive, somewhat larger than life and intimate film 'about' hopelessness and sense of displacement with so many ruins and shadows. Few, but precious lines. She comes back only to find sorrow and what her husband did in these years away from her and her simple but cosy life at Cabo Verde -- arrested, drunk, played cards, made some friends in prison and in bars. Local priest can't even pray. Every man is a ghost. The only alive person in the world is Vitalina.

Viewed October 6, 2019.

Slow and haunting. The story is about loss and grief but even more so about getting married to dreams and illusions. The setting is very specific yet the emotions and doubts expressed are universal. "If I learn to speak Portuguese will you say those things you never did in Cape Verde".

Esse lugar a que Vitalina chega, e em que nós, como espectadores, estamos inseridos desde antes de sua chegada, é escuro e restrito, fracamente iluminado por uma luz que vem de fora (da janela ou acima e além dos muros e paredes), mas esse fora, esse espaço além do quadro, nunca é localizado.

Acho que esse é um dos filmes mais visualmente bonitos que vi na vida, o chiaroscuro de Costa contrastado à pele negra já estava presente em seus filmes anteriores, mas em Vitalina Varela atinge uma espécie de ápice estético transcendental que fica ainda mais entrelaçado à história de vida de Vitalina. Obra-prima. Na Mubi.

A film examining grief completely shrouded in shadow, like a black mist holding things in place. I suspect this will be a film I go back to in darker times but right now I am not on its wavelength.

Probably due for a rewatch when in a different mood. While the cinematography was excellent, it was exhausting to get through. After 45 minutes, I lost interest and had a hard time reinvesting energy to finish it.