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IN VANDA’S ROOM
2000
Director
Pedro Costa
Starring
Vanda Duarte
Lena Duarte
Zita Duarte
Pedro Lanban
António 'Pango' Semedo
Runtime
171 minutes
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Living in ghost houses other people left empty…
Portuguese cinematic poet Pedro Costa has thus far made five films in, about, and with residents of the shanty village on the coast of Lisbon known as Fontainhas. Today there’s no longer any Fontainhas left standing at all but that hasn’t stopped him yet. After making his first narrative feature OSSOS there in 1997, it quickly became obvious that, as Costa puts it, “the neighborhood refused this kind of cinema, it didn’t want it.” The rough terrain of rubble and unpaved streets swiftly overpowered the necessities of a traditional film set. Three years into filming in Fontainhas, Costa was forced to succumb to the city’s overbearing dilapidation and was left with only his two legs, a tripod, the camera, and his actors - the real residents of the neighborhood who were crumbling along with it. As reality penetrated the production, narrative fiction was forced to give way to documentary and IN VANDA’S ROOM was born.
IN VANDA’S ROOM loosely follows, in poetic fragments, the lives of Vanda Duarte and her neighbors. As buildings are torn down around them, they have become squatters in their own neighborhood, embracing the quick release of hard drug use and self-destruction to survive the oppressive weight of their circumstances. The conditions of the location and its inhabitants are what form Costa’s rich style; deep pools of black shadows (lighting in these conditions was unreliable) and a documentary-like realism capturing vanishing space and people (every day the city changed and continuity was an impossible expectation). Managing to achieve the texture of a Vermeer painting with a low-fi digital camera, Costa’s film intimately captures vignettes of daily life that transcend the frame; a cinema of moments. Even without introduction or explanation, his observational style weaves a beautiful basket of relationships, exchange, and boundaries within a close community that seems to be in the process of disintegrating between each cut. IN VANDA’S ROOM is a mesmerizing film that could have only been made in the exact moments that it was, capturing the impermanence of our societies and the everlasting impact of the relationships inside of them.
“The 21st century begins for cinema with Pedro Costa’s IN VANDA’S ROOM.” - Shigehiko Hasumi
“IN VANDA’S ROOM remains one of the most important works of the entire film medium. The failure of a political situation can only be effectively and authentically expressed through the depiction of its poorest conditions of living. But what makes VANDA leap from political inquiry to total masterpiece are the moments of real beauty in this film. The colors, the shafts of light, the smoke, the faces. Laughter, reminiscences, the giving of flowers from one to another. How could one forget the steam lifting off of a nude silhouette on a hot day? But the final shot may very well be the first true cinematic image of the 21st century.” - Neil Bahadur
Portuguese cinematic poet Pedro Costa has thus far made five films in, about, and with residents of the shanty village on the coast of Lisbon known as Fontainhas. Today there’s no longer any Fontainhas left standing at all but that hasn’t stopped him yet. After making his first narrative feature OSSOS there in 1997, it quickly became obvious that, as Costa puts it, “the neighborhood refused this kind of cinema, it didn’t want it.” The rough terrain of rubble and unpaved streets swiftly overpowered the necessities of a traditional film set. Three years into filming in Fontainhas, Costa was forced to succumb to the city’s overbearing dilapidation and was left with only his two legs, a tripod, the camera, and his actors - the real residents of the neighborhood who were crumbling along with it. As reality penetrated the production, narrative fiction was forced to give way to documentary and IN VANDA’S ROOM was born.
IN VANDA’S ROOM loosely follows, in poetic fragments, the lives of Vanda Duarte and her neighbors. As buildings are torn down around them, they have become squatters in their own neighborhood, embracing the quick release of hard drug use and self-destruction to survive the oppressive weight of their circumstances. The conditions of the location and its inhabitants are what form Costa’s rich style; deep pools of black shadows (lighting in these conditions was unreliable) and a documentary-like realism capturing vanishing space and people (every day the city changed and continuity was an impossible expectation). Managing to achieve the texture of a Vermeer painting with a low-fi digital camera, Costa’s film intimately captures vignettes of daily life that transcend the frame; a cinema of moments. Even without introduction or explanation, his observational style weaves a beautiful basket of relationships, exchange, and boundaries within a close community that seems to be in the process of disintegrating between each cut. IN VANDA’S ROOM is a mesmerizing film that could have only been made in the exact moments that it was, capturing the impermanence of our societies and the everlasting impact of the relationships inside of them.
“The 21st century begins for cinema with Pedro Costa’s IN VANDA’S ROOM.” - Shigehiko Hasumi
“IN VANDA’S ROOM remains one of the most important works of the entire film medium. The failure of a political situation can only be effectively and authentically expressed through the depiction of its poorest conditions of living. But what makes VANDA leap from political inquiry to total masterpiece are the moments of real beauty in this film. The colors, the shafts of light, the smoke, the faces. Laughter, reminiscences, the giving of flowers from one to another. How could one forget the steam lifting off of a nude silhouette on a hot day? But the final shot may very well be the first true cinematic image of the 21st century.” - Neil Bahadur