Popular reviews

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★

  "Her child should be mine."

  This is a movie that gets better with each successive viewing. The Bresson comparisons are bullshit...this is a movie about spaces and geography, from the perspective of an outsider looking in. That's why we see so many shots through doorways and windows. This is an outsiders portrait of a community, an outsiders because Costa has yet to fully engage with the community, as he would in his next film. So we linger on faces, hands, gestures.

  These gestures are all gestures of empathy, not from the filmmaker towards the subject (which would run the risk of being condescending), but from character toward character. Costa attempts to aestheticize everything here: we leave the "plot" to see…

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★½

  If CASA DE LAVA exhibits a budding conflict between Costa's talents as a filmmaker and the unpredictability seeping into his increasing interest in documenting outsider communities, OSSOS directly approaches a new way of shooting, though it does not quite reach the full breakthrough of IN VANDA'S ROOM. Nonetheless, Costa's first cinematic journey to Fontainhas is one of the best films of its year, a portrait of young, impoverished characters who behave unpredictably, and sometimes horribly yet are never painted as stupid junkies or irredeemable hooligans. There are so many elegant, harrowing moments stacked on top of each other, from the young mother trying to gas herself and child, only to be rescued by her husband (or does she come to…

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  Review by Forrest Cardamenis ★★½ 1

  Why do all the main characters in this film look the same?

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  Review by Deckk ★★

  A young man from the Fontainhas slums of Lisbon has to take care of his newborn child after it’s given up by the suicidal, equally young mother. Ossos follows these ambiguous characters around to observe the consequences of their decisions and actions, building an eminently downbeat ambience. I emphasise the word ‘observe’ like that, because director Pedro Costa’s camerawork is of the intentionally overtly slow kind, chronically kept lingering around after scenes have already disclosed what they storywise had to tell. People may just sit or stand, not a word being spoken, but the camera doesn’t move away from its zoomed-in state yet, recording background noises as the only soundtrack. Artsy and intimate, I get what Costa’s trying to do.…

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★ 1

  Still I think, a very beautiful film. Secretly, it is a melodrama, but with all the narrative elements stripped out so all we get are moments of reflection and glances - glances of compassion. It possibly runs the risk of misrepresentation - but I don't think any of us would be making this criticism had Costa not made his next two 'narrative' films. But if this film does not explore the space truly, it offers us a real picture of solidarity - mostly solidarity between women, "The evil eye is upon you. It's over now, you must pass it on to me."/"Her child should be my child" - there is poverty here but then community is more strengthened than ever.…

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  Review by Zeke ★★★½

  The Criterion Challenge 2023

  Slow and ambient, the first of Pedro Costa's Fontainhas Trilogy, Ossos is an intimate look into communal breakdown. With a measured pace, the elongated duration of scenes and moments which extend past the narrative allows us to sit, watch, and contemplate, engaging fully with the image. Costa observes his characters and their environments, the dilapidated surroundings etched through Emmanuel Machuel's umbrous photography, accentuating the many young lives affected. Tonally desolate, the film's aesthetics and semi-ethnofictional elements create a work of authenticity and compassion.

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  Review by Jerry McGlothlin ★★★½ 4

  The sun rarely shines upon the slums.

  Throughout Ossos, we very rarely see above the concrete maze that engulfs our characters. There seems to be no sky in sight; no escape from the narrow confinement of poverty that has transformed these people from humans to piles of bones who spend their days aimlessly wandering the back alleys that make up their labyrinthine purgatory. Muddy water on the ground stains the soles of their shoes, each cigarette seems to smolder slower and slower; the arrival of each nightfall syphons another drop of their will. Spacial thrall oppresses and flattens them, and you can see it written all over their faces.

  Dialogue takes a back seat to expression here. Costa is less interested…

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  Review by Bruno Andrade ★★★★½

  Sempre tive a ideia de que o cinema era para fazer o mal, não para fazer o bem. Era para mostrar as coisas que são muito muito más de uma maneira muito muito má, muito dura. Quando digo muito má, é muito dura, de fazê-las de uma maneira muito... áspera. Tentar agarrar as pessoas de uma maneira muito... que elas resistissem muito.

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  Review by VonBergundy ★★½ 6

  I love me some slow cinema, but this is damn near dead cinema. I guess the emptiness of the characters is probably part of the point. Doesn't make it any less tedious to get through stretches of the film.

  Not to say there aren't any moments that standout. The baby in the garbage bag tracking shot was great, highlighting the best aspect of the film, which is the location. I found myself much more interested in all the sounds and people in the background. It's easily what gives the film a certain immersive quality- one which it struggles to maintain with every shot lingering 5 seconds too long for no discernable reason. I craved more of the little moments like the dance party, but instead I got a ton of blank stares and hand closeups.

  Criterion Challenge - 1/52 (Released the year I was born)
  Top 250 Directors Challenge - 40/250 (#178 - Pedro Costa)

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  Review by Graham ★★★½

  The first part of Pedro Costa's The Fontainhas Collection, Ossos sets the scene for this descent into a painful life lacking a strand of hope. A rugged nightmare reality, Ossos clambers among the back streets of a Lisbon shanty where quality of life is rare to see.

  Darker down these concrete corridors, threat is everywhere, and for this tiny baby, the threat is very real. Born to teenage parents and already swallowed up within the pain of poverty, it sleeps, cries, but mostly waits. Waiting for a meal to validate its existence.

  Life? Or is this just a dream?

  The baby's mother stares aimlessly into her own personal cold and lonely abyss, unable to get a glimpse of a future,…

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  Review by Avirup ★★

  37/100
  
  Bresson rolling over in his grave seeing all the comparisons.

  This one didn't annoy me like Casa de Lava at least. I think I know what Costa was going for here and I appreciate it but the way he executes everything is just so soulless. It's sure is well shot, there are some great compositions but Costa's long takes are meaningless and they don't add anything. His characters here are pretty much pointless too, they all look same and they exist just to suffer pointlessly without adding any sense of realism to their situations — obviously there's absolutely zero emotional depth. But at least there's lot of unnecessary blank staring. There are actually one or two moments that make some impact but overall Costa's idea of how poor people act and behave is truly hilarious. So anyways that's 0/3 from Costa so far but I ain't giving up yet.

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  Review by 🐱Andrew Chrzanowski🐱 ★★★★ 2

  ☆"The evil eye is upon you. It's all over now."☆

  Pedro Costa's "Fontainhas Trilogy" is one I've wanted to complete for a long time, after randomly stumbling on the final film Colossal Youth two-and-a-half years ago to utter amazement. (I'll still watch it again tonight, now with a crisp Criterion copy.) I vowed to backtrack and watch the first two features one day, and that day is today.

  The Portuguese director has an incredible body of work that spans now into a fifth decade, but many consider this loose trilogy of films to be his very best, and unquestionably they are the ones that granted him international acclaim. Named for the forgotten slums outside of Lisbon, Fontainhas becomes a character…