Religion – Camera Coverage

Directed by Pedro Costa

vitalina

“It’s poison!”

[“É veneno!“]

Pedro Costa is in 2019 already a well-established auteur. His work since Casa de Lava (1994) has been consistent theme-wise, and at the same time its progress is clear throughout. With Vitalina Varela the director still manages to stay true to the work he has been developing since Ossos (1997), on elevating the everyday lives of impoverished and endangered people into the realm of cinema. At the same time, there is a sense of evolution, and character development in a way, in this new feature. It is a film about Vitalina Varela, the main actress of the film, and her mostly true story of coming to meet her husband in Portugal after a 40 year waiting call for a ticket, arriving too late, as his funeral had taken place three days before her arrival.

A film well worth noticing for its dark environments, captured as pristine as possible by Costa and his usual collaborator Leonardo Simões

As a standalone feature it is a great new way to introduce a new viewer to the director’s other films. In a way it’s one of the most linear narrative structures of the director, especially if we consider his last film Horse Money (2014) as comparison. In another hand, it is easily the most slow-paced of all of his films, making it the biggest chore to the casual moviegoer that wants to get in touch with his whole filmography. Nonetheless, Vitalina Varela has what is the most positive look towards the future of those depicted Cape Verdeans. It is at the same time, with the help of heavy stylization and immense technical care, a film that is as elevated and astray from reality as it is grounded, by its individual elements (real setting, non-actors, real stories, etc), on the truth surrounding these people’s social and economic lives.

Ventura

If we try and manage to contextualize Vitalina Varela in Costa’s full body of work, we can easily state as a fact that this is, as per usual when there is a new film by the director, the zenith of his career. If we consider the balance stated in the last paragraph, it is nothing new to the director’s other films. What is impressive is the development of the actor Ventura, the main character of his two last films Colossal Youth (2006) and Horse Money. It is the first time Ventura is not playing as himself, this is, as the character of Ventura. He plays a priest. This is the absolute next step on what we can consider as the big politics of Costa’s films. Ventura has now reached a new height, as a normal person being an actor playing himself, and now as a normal person being an actor playing a third-party character. The idea of cinema as proof of human potential in art, and of human potential in something that is transcendental, even transcendental of what may appear only as ethical, economical or political statements. This something is what makes these people worth much more than what the world gives to them, as every single person that suffers from similar conditions. This final goal is beautifully achieved in Vitalina Varela, and it presents us the in-depth story of a character that appeared briefly in Horse Money, a story that is tragic, but essentially true. The real truth, though, is not in these stories, it is not in these real people. The truth is their ability to make something great, a film, to be stars, even though that they were born in the dark side of Jesus’ face.

10 out of 10

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

“Let no one say, and say it to your shame / That all was beauty here, until you came.”

This week on Camera Coverage, after an unfortunate but necessary hiatus, we take a chance at yet another Horror Classic. This time we discuss one of RKO’s ultimate, but sadly forgotten classics, Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People. We often associate suspense films of this era with Alfred Hitchcock, and rightly so, but Tourneur is a French director that utilized the techniques of the afforementioned director to a new height in his Hollywood career. Despite being associated with B-movie fair, Cat People presents classic horror cinema at its best. There is a creature, there is melodrama, there is symbolism and there is masterful use of archaic techniques in order to portray (or not) all these cathartic elements.

The film plays with the character of Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a Serbian fashion designer working in New York. Right from the beginning of the film we are introduced to her future husband Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), who’s relationship with will be the main focus of the whole film. Irena has a unsettling past and is afraid that some legends from her village in Serbia are true and inside her. Stories of witches, kings, witchhunters and, of course, cat people, live within her as she expresses her anxieties of the possibility of all of it being true. This will lead to a troubled marriage, in which physical contact is inexistant, and the insistence of another woman inside the relationship dynamic will be the key factor for Irena to release the panther within her.

Alice as, in a genre bending role, The Other Woman, a New Yorker intruding a troubled marriage between a Serbian (Irena) and an American (Oliver).

All of this is quite literal. Irena seems to really release, or rather transform into, a panther by the third act of the film. So what makes the film so fascinating despite its somewhat cheesy premise? Well, what could have turned into a really awkward puppet and silicone fest is dealt with incredible subtilty. Tourneur’s cinema uses shadows as one of its foundational elements. This is essential to a film working with metamorphosis as is Cat People. The idea of transformation is never portrayed directly onto the screen, but suggested. I believe, as many others do, that Tourneur utilized heavy indexicality mainly because of the somewhat low budget of the film. That said, when working with abductive imagery he manages to elevate the film not only in terms of ambiguity, but also in relation to films that utilize top-notch special effects but sadly do not hold so well nowadays. It must be noted and observed that this technique is not reduced to editing and cutting the scene when transformations are due, but there is a work of suggestive imagery throughout the whole of the film. From images of Irena with paintings of menacing cats in the background, to juxstaposition of her body and a reproduction of a statue of Anubis, to the crossing of Irena’s figure and the shadow of an armchair giving her some sort of cat ears. One of the key scenes works with Irena’s footsteps quickly silencing as she is chasing Alice (Jane Randolph), as we must only assume that her feet transmorphed into the silent, deadly paws of a black panther. This film represents the use of cinema’s rhethorical means at its best, using not only the resource of image and visual representation, but going as far as utilizing sound to its most effective.

Another example of suggestion – in this case premonition – of a scene through shadows and objects. If you look closely you can observe the shadow of the bird and its cage projected onto the black panther image, predicting what would later happen in that scene regarding the bird’s death.

One can love a film by its technical prowess, but what does it all really mean? Well, Cat People does not shy away from ambiguity. This is not only due to the decisions behind the technical aspects of the film, but also due to the broad themes that the film is dealing with. Probably the most clear readings of the film lay on the problem of sexuality, femininity and relationships as a whole. There is a clear suggestion throughout the whole film of Irena’s fear of touch, even though she is already married and social or even religious judgements are not an issue. This woman is dynamic in the film, as she can transform into a menacing beast that is awaken by the overextension of male activity in the world that is her own – this is, sexual intercourse regarding her own body. But what about her Serbian identity? The reading of the film as a cultural collision is another interesting perspective by which we can approach Cat People.

Despite all these possible perspectives on the film, its ambiguity and blank spaces should be respected and perceived as such. This is a film that is simultaneously meant to be enjoyed and discussed, but never reduced to x or y perspective. By trying to limit the film’s readings (there is an immense focus by critics in accessing the film with the perspective on sexual anxieties), we tend to leave its essential element of identity that it is dealing with. More than a woman or a Serbian, Irene is an individual trying to defend her individuality when in necessity of interacting with other individuals. Whether Irene is a cat person or not we will never get to really see, but what we get to see is that Irene is as human as she can as she tries to survive in our inherently intrusive world.

Tag: Religion

Vitalina Varela (2019)