An interesting meditation on life in poverty but it feels so stretched out that much of the intended impact feels muted. I like it more in retrospect but I doubt I'd ever take the time to watch it again.

The end of the trilogy. I'm exhausted from its stasis. I didn't understand the point and I'm too perplexed to care.

Visually, unlike I've ever seen before, this film has single-handedly raised my appreciation and anticipation of what digital cinema can do. Costa has a remarkably astute eye when it comes to light, to framing, and to the positioning of his actors. In this film, Costa uses these formal elements to create a wide spectrum of feeling, dominated by a sense that a neighborhood, a community, a family, and maybe meaning altogether has been lost. See this film.

When it comes to long, slow-paced, spare films, this one is int he top echelon. The hazy, langorous, narrative is indeed trying, despite some arresting images; and ultimately I have to admit that maybe this film is outside my level of astuteness.

A Fontainhas, quartier desherite de Lisbonne, Ventura erre comme une ame en peine, tourmente par la vie et ses fantomes et un plan de relogement social. Costa le filme en plans sequences somptueux comme un herault sortit des mythes.

Stillness can often show a lack of wanting to move on. Whether due to budget constraints or artistry, Pedro Costa’s use of still shots in Colossal Youth shows how many of the characters are not yet ready to move on with their lives and deal with change in the modern world. Using a cast made of amateurs, the film follows Ventura as he visits each of his ‘children’ in the slums of Fontainhas, who are gradually being moved to a newly built development. Each tells their own story in snapshots of their deprived lives to build a picture of life in the slums. The lack of camera movement and realistic tales give the film a documentary feel, making this film a struggle. The lack of activity, dark lighting and long dialogues can at times fail to keep the viewer engaged, despite the protagonists’ ability to hold attention. The films long duration and repetitive nature make this one for contentious viewers alone. Much like Jia Zhang-Ke’s Still Life, Pedro Costa shows how modern change is affecting the lives of society’s lower order who simply want to remain still.

It bills itself a documentary, but the way it's filmed is as dramatic as anything I've seen. The gorgeous imagery scarcely masks the desolation of both environment and characters, who spend every moment as if trapped in the headlights of some imminent catastrophe.

Costa's film is contentious and frequently feels interminable. But, what it achieves is staggering: it is beyond a new cinematic genre, it provides an entirely new aesthetic and cinematic language.

Go into this one with a caffeine buzz and an attention span--you will be rewarded. "Colossal Youth", part-documentary, part-fiction, follows Ventura, an impoverished retiree, through the streets of Lisbon as he meets with his many sons and daughters. Stark, bare rooms--shot in video--have never looked more incredible.

je n'avais jamais vu autant de monde (en proportion) sortir en pleine seance. et pas pour aller pisser, ou alors ils se sont tous perdus. comme les deux autres tiers de la salle, j'ai tenu. par la force du film, dont l'intelligence m'a largement depasse'. mais j'ai eu la chance de ressentir ce a' cote' de quoi je passais. ce qui est deja' une grande experience.

I hope this and all of Pedro Costa's movies someday make it to DVD in the U.S. I was fortunate to see five of them at the Dryden Theatre in Rochester. I have never seen anything like them -- in each, the entire narrative formula is turned on its head. Every important thing that happens seems to happen off-screen, leaving us with a series of gorgeously composed, darkly lit, interconnected preludes and aftermaths. Colossal Youth is the best of them, but they are all great.

2 horas y media de lloradera. Unos ranchitos fotografiados poeticamente como las ruinas de Tarkovsky o aun mejor, y unos dialogos hermosos y terribles. En fin, un cumulo de dedos en la llaga imprescindible para las almas en pena!

Costa is one of the great masters of modern cinema next to Bruno Dumont, Lav Diaz,.... Colosal Youth is a mastercpiece of the XXI century!

After 6 years, Pedro Costa visits Vanda again

good movie! didn't enjoyed this movie as his previous ones.

Ok, so I could finally stay up the whole time to watch this, the 2nd time around. I had my coffee latte to go with it, and it's still making me jittery, or was it the movie? It was so much pain to see the film, depicting human suffering in the Portugese slum for 2 and a half hours. But the composition and DV colours were supreme, and the direction was masterly. Most of the actors are kind of reading the lines without much expression, giving us the non-pro actor feel, including the love letter that Ventura kept reciting. But Vanda was one marvelous woman expressing her life and thought on screen. It didn't quite reach a climax for me, but the painterly pictures, poetic stories, and light humour make this one of the best films I've seen this year. The method reminds me a lot of "Syndrome and a Century" and "Still Life" from last year.

Hear that woooosh! sound? That's the movie whizzing over my head. Stunning DV photography, though.

You need to relax and watch the show.

This would have made an incredible short film, and I agree that Costa is a visionary and there are so many parts of the film I truly love, including the concept of this perhaps senile old man wandering around the slum area of Lisbon visiting his 'children', but pacing kills this film dead. And I can tolerate slow films, but with the trance like conversations and unrelenting repetition, the film suffers. It is a shame, it is a poor experience, but a great vision.

its possible no one will get to see this, but in its behemoth running time and its lurid, desolate landscapes, Costa's masterpieve conjurs up ghosts of the old west, the newest industry and a dead romance that lifts every single frame upwards. a truly unbelievable piece of cinematic art.