A painterly minimalist drama...

| Mar 4, 2024

Far from the tenebrist plasticity that adds poetry with chiaroscuro, it seems to me a leaden, futile and overwhelmingly lethargic docufiction exercise from Costa. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/10 | Sep 8, 2023

The film elicits oppression and anguish, but in its search, it also allows (literal) rays of hope. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 8/10 | May 3, 2023

It’s a somber world with unnerving undertones, designed for awe and discomfort in equal measure, which is very justifiable. If I emerged in a fog, that’s by design—still, this isn’t the exhaustion I crave.

| Dec 2, 2022

The Lisbon filmmaker's most evocative and complete achievement to date. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jul 29, 2021

This latest film may be most notable...for its changing of the temporal rules that have up until now defined the occupants of Fontainhas.

| Jun 5, 2021

Pedro Costa writes a fascinating chronicle of mourning, uprooting and oblivion in contemporary Portugal. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 17, 2021

The movie's production design and cinematography work well with this story of mystery and grief. Often, we feel as if we are in a mine, or maybe moving through spotlighted dollhouse rooms, everything too delicate and dim to be real.

| Feb 25, 2021

A painstakingly painterly film that is as funereally deliberate as it is ecstatically wrought.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 24, 2021

Convoluted. Gorgeous. Mesmerizing. Frustrating. Vitalina Varela -from Portugal. Pedro Costa has made a truly transfixing work that is grounded by the angry, bitter and tormented titular character.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 7, 2021

Costa-who is one of the great image makers-visualizes that sense of relief and renewal beautifully. It's amazing how powerful the sight of blue skies can be after being plunged into endless night.

| Jan 27, 2021

The cinematography is other worldly. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 30, 2020

With Vitalina Varela [director Pedro] Costa has reached a new zenith. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 12, 2020

There is a reason there are not many films like this. Vitalina Varela is so uncompromising and so concentrated that it threatens to absorb the projector beam...

| Sep 16, 2020

The enduring paradox of Costa's work is that this setting has its own irresistible glamour, reminiscent of fashion photography; the people he films are his models.

| Aug 6, 2020

Director Pedro Costa's film is stunning to behold.

| Jul 16, 2020

...a work of astonishing visual richness, boasting a depth of dark and light, a fullness of color, and an exquisite care for composition.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 1, 2020

If you can give two hours of your existence to a dark room and sincere thought, there's nothing more essential available right now.

| Jun 4, 2020

The film, shot almost entirely at night by cinematographer Leonardo Simões, is breathtakingly beautiful...In one beautiful bit of alchemy, clothespins appear as raised praying hands over black cloaks which dance as Vitalina edges past them.

| Original Score: A- | May 7, 2020

It feels strange to say that Vitalina Varela is a visually stunning film because what it depicts is an ugly failing of people. It's a film submerged in regret, remorse, anger, and in some ways a faint light of hope (but just faint).

| May 2, 2020