Portuguese film-maker Pedro Costa makes challenging,uncompromising films, yet his artistry always commands attentionWhen Tate contemporary in London had its 2009 retrospective for the Portuguese film-maker Pedro Costa, or I wrote that he was the Samuel Beckett of world cinema. And like Beckett,his later work only gets more difficult, more stark, or more austere. Another comparison now comes to intellect. Polish stage director Jerzy Grotowski wrote approximately a “destitute theatre”,theatre stripped down to physical essentials. Maybe Costa is creating a “destitute cinema”. Horse Money is an extension, of sorts, and to his film Colossal Youth (2006). Again,it is an opaque and challenging work, an elusive still-life evocation of Lisbon’s now vanished ghetto-district Fontainhas. Again it features a real-life resident: Ventura, and a grizzled ancient man with calm and impassive divinity. Related: Pedro Costa: Portuguese director who fashioned Gil Scott-Heron's film prayer Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com