New York Film Festival 57 Screenings 6
Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)
In the Q & A after last night's screening of Vitalina Varela, Pedro Costa's first film since 2014's Horse Money, Costa invoked Andy Warhol's Beauty #2 as an influence. On the surface, it would be difficult to imagine two more different films - the former featuring denizens of the Warhol Factory lounging in bed with plenty of leisure time to spare; the latter, Vitalina Varela, a performer in Horse Money here playing some sort of version of herself as a Cape Verdean woman returning to the shantytown of Cova da Moura* near Lisbon to bury the husband who abandoned her 25 years ago. And yet both films have the uncanny knack of insinuating themselves into your experience bank.
I cannot tell a lie. Sitting through Vitalina Varela was a chore. But the moment the end credits appeared, a sense of longing washed over me, the feeling of wanting time spent with loved ones to continue. And the more I read about the film, the more I miss it. That longing derives from how Costa avoids the temptation of portraiture. This is no bite-sized exposé on bombed-out poverty. Instead, he approaches Cova da Moura* via the liminal - between extremes of light and dark, whisper and declamation, stasis and movement. And thus the film becomes less a box to check for raised consciousness than a constellation of moments we half-remember through feeling rather than fact. We quite literally spend time with Varela in a radical act of connectedness.
Grade: A
* Not Fontainhas as I originally had it. Thank you, Andy Wrong Rector.
In the Q & A after last night's screening of Vitalina Varela, Pedro Costa's first film since 2014's Horse Money, Costa invoked Andy Warhol's Beauty #2 as an influence. On the surface, it would be difficult to imagine two more different films - the former featuring denizens of the Warhol Factory lounging in bed with plenty of leisure time to spare; the latter, Vitalina Varela, a performer in Horse Money here playing some sort of version of herself as a Cape Verdean woman returning to the shantytown of Cova da Moura* near Lisbon to bury the husband who abandoned her 25 years ago. And yet both films have the uncanny knack of insinuating themselves into your experience bank.
I cannot tell a lie. Sitting through Vitalina Varela was a chore. But the moment the end credits appeared, a sense of longing washed over me, the feeling of wanting time spent with loved ones to continue. And the more I read about the film, the more I miss it. That longing derives from how Costa avoids the temptation of portraiture. This is no bite-sized exposé on bombed-out poverty. Instead, he approaches Cova da Moura* via the liminal - between extremes of light and dark, whisper and declamation, stasis and movement. And thus the film becomes less a box to check for raised consciousness than a constellation of moments we half-remember through feeling rather than fact. We quite literally spend time with Varela in a radical act of connectedness.
Grade: A
* Not Fontainhas as I originally had it. Thank you, Andy Wrong Rector.
Labels: NYFF, Pedro Costa
posted by Kevin John at 10:14 AM
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