Casa de Lava

Didn't see this until after seeing BLOOD, IN VANDA'S ROOM, COLOSSAL YOUTH and HORSE MONEY, but it cements the idea that Costa is in the process of creating a "cinema of zombieness". In this case, the constant questions asked but not answered can at times be a little wearing, but great use is made of the setting (TIRESIA will have a similarly volcanic opening), with a sense of imminent eruption, but where the rumblings of discontent may just continue unabated into an uncertain, desolate future.

Whoever shot this is a genius. Some of the most gorgeous framing I've seen in film. The film is quite strange, but alluring and has its own distinctive poetic language that is difficult to make coherent, but is nevertheless compelling and immersive.

Every scene looks like a painting. Easy enough to just get lost in its slow rhythms but underneath it uses its influences to create a brilliant work of anti colonialism. Mariana wants everyone to see the beauty she might see. But everyone else just want a better life. “Everything seems beautiful because you don't understand. Those flying fish, they're not leaping for joy, they're jumping in terror”

Inevitable is this alienating gloom associated with Mariana choosing to deliver a symbolically dead man, in hopes of life within his homeland. The narrative shares this delirious consciousness that takes place later, as we see Mariana become engulfed by troubles of the people living here. How unalike this foreign exploration may feel, although an intended journey of selflessness, Mariana becomes lost within and in fact feels the burden of death we witness on screen.

Há 25 anos estreava no Festival de Thessaloniki. É de consenso geral que este é uma espécie de remake de I Walked with a Zombie do Tourneaur, que por sua vez já era uma adaptação de Jane Eyre da Charlotte Bronte, mas não pude deixar de perceber uma veia oriunda de Stromboli também, não só por se passar numa ilha vulcânica que permeia a trajetória existencial da protagonista, mas por alguns planos terem saído diretamente do filme de Rossellini. WEBRip no MakingOff.

C.D.L was a transitional film that featured elements of Costa's future style before the radical formal break occured. It pales in comparative significance due to Costa's complete mastery of a unique minimalist style in the interim with a strong emphasis on dimly lit interiors. Nonetheless, it's a key work in his oeuvre that has moments of real atmospheric beauty, capturing his obvious talent in its raw embryonic state, but the concentrated intensity of Colossal Youth was still years away.

Two stories: One is the story of a man who has left his barren homeland in search for a better life, only to find fate dragging him right back. The other is the story of a woman who finds herself in a mysterious kind of purgatory, surrounded by lonely people trapped in a vicious cycle of pain and resentment. As the two stories converge, the narrative gets more abstract and slippery, and the film pivots from reality to something more foreboding and dreamlike. Possibly Costa's best.

Easy to sit through, and looks pretty at times, but i just couldnt care for any of the characters or anything else for that matter