With Vitalina Varela, Ventura, Manuel Tavares Almeida, Francisco Brito. A Cape Verdean woman navigates her way through Lisbon, following the scanty physical traces her deceased husband left behind and discovering his secret, illicit life. Vitalina Varela in Pedro Costa's film of the same name.
Vitalina Varela movie reviews & Metacritic score: A Cape Verdean woman who has travelled to Lisbon to reunite with her husband, after two decades of separati. Pedro Costa's strict adherence to formalism will excite his base, while others will be less enthralled by his rigidly composed images used to generate intellectualized emotions. Vitalina Varela (Varela, playing a fictionalized version of herself with tragic restraint) has flown from her home in the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde to attend the funeral of her husband.
He, like so many, had traveled to Europe in search of work, as a way to send money home. "Vitalina Varela" will create animated debate between the uneven camps, and for those less inclined toward Costa's brand of cinema, only the powerful screen presence of the lead, whose life story this is, saves this punishingly dark work from drowning in its own purposeful opacity. It's a relentlessly grim tale of immigration, suffering, and loneliness that deserves to be contemplated. Vitalina Varela is slow, enduring, dark, and anything you've come to expect from Costa by now. I'll admit that I was bored several times during the film It isn't unique in the context of Costa's previous productions, I think he even went as far as to saying he makes the same movie over and over again. Vitalina Varela, the Cape Verdean lead of the film, arrives to Lisbon too late to embrace the recently deceased husband she'd only seen a couple of times after he'd left for Portugal in search of a better life. All she has left is to try and rebuild the everyday life of a man she doesn't know anymore, the memory.
Trailer Vitalina Varela
Suddenly, in the sumptuous darkness of a neighborhood haunted by solemn shadows, the deep red of bloody sheets. Vitalina Varela is too late; all she can do now is settle her husband's affairs. Die Milieustudie zeichnet das Leben der Titelfigur Vitalina Varela in einem Slum in Lissabon.
The best movie reviews, in your inbox. Vitalina Varela - A Cape Verdean woman navigates her way through Lisbon, following the scanty physical traces her deceased husband left behind and discovering his secret, illicit life. News. 'Vitalina Varela', named for its leading actress (Vitalina Varela, 'Horse Money'), follows a widow who moves to Lisbon, Portugal from Cape Verde following the death of her husband. In Lisbon, the protagonist intends to settle her husband's affairs and live in the home that was meant to be theirs.