Rent Vitalina Varela (2019)

Film-making of the highest order. - Vitalina Varela review by CP Customer

'Vitalina Varela' is the latest film by one of World Cinema's contemporary greats, Pedro Costa. As such it is definitely his most fully realised work to date. It is quite simply a thing of deep, dark beauty.

Nearly every sequence is framed by impenetrable shadow, with the centre of the screen bathed in a pool of subtle light. Costa is a true master of lighting, down to the finest detail. You can freeze the picture at any point and see a superbly composed artwork. No wonder it takes Costa a long time to shoot his films.

The film is the true story of Vitalina Varela's attempts to understand her late husband's life and death in Lisbon. She arrives there from her home in the Cape Verde Islands. The twilight, becalmed world of the Cape Verdeans in Portugal will be familiar to anyone who has seen Costa's previous films.

Vitalina herself is rarely off screen, and she is a powerful presence, with a strong, intelligent face that commands the long, lingering takes.

Love and death are the key themes and it is well worth watching the Q&A with Costa that is included in the special features.

My one regret is that it is hard to see Costa's films on the big screen. I'd love to see this film on a quality system, with good sound and a visual capacity that does justice to the use of light.

Grief, Given Walls and Shadows - Vitalina Varela review by griggs

Beautiful in the way a bruise is beautiful — unasked-for and a little alarming. Pedro Costa shoots Vitalina Varela like every frame costs something: faces dragged from darkness, rooms that look like chapels after the electricity gave up on God. I loved the look of it. The trouble is, I also spent chunks of it wondering whether I was watching cinema or being punished by a church wall.

Vitalina arrives in Lisbon three days after her husband’s funeral — too late for answers, too late for the life she was owed. Costa doesn’t tell a story so much as place you inside its aftermath. Grief here doesn’t scream; it waits in paperwork, silence and architecture, the residue of a man who left and never quite explained himself.

At its best, this is devastating. Vitalina is too specific, too wounded, too much herself to be turned into a symbol, and the film gives her dignity without pretending to explain her. It doesn’t feel like poverty tourism; it feels like grief being given walls, shadows and a locked door.

I struggled to stay with it at times — there were stretches where I felt locked out rather than drawn deeper in. But it got under my skin. I admired it, resisted it often, and was quietly flattened by the end.

For film producers only - Vitalina Varela review by MWDW

This film is excruciatingly slow with the characters only able to crawl along slowly in semi darkness, occasionally partially illuminated by unsubtle shafts of light. So far it is the only world cinema film that I had to switch off after 25 minutes since I was becoming catatonic.