Dans la chambre de Vanda

Unsurprisingly, it's pretty dull in those four walls. I say unsurprisingly because when it comes to serious boredom junkies are right up there with bankers, dentists, and interpretive dancers. Just a veritable cornucopia of solipsism with its attendant staring off into space, desultory, pointless conversation, coughing (lots of that), yelling, mumbling to oneself and more staring off into space. And, if that doesn't get the point across, director Pedro Costa thoughtfully provides the viewer with copious shots of Lisbon slum dwelling demolition. I lasted about an hour and fifteen and would have pulled the plug sooner had it not been for some of the most perversely lovely cinematography this side of a Caravaggio or a Zurburan.

Bottom line: Next time I wish to visit Portugal vicariously I'll crack open a can of sardines. C plus.

This movie follows somehow in the wake of the Eye Cinema or Cinema of Truth (Dziga Vertov, Jean Rouch etc.) though with a much different and unusual subject: the everyday life of a group of drug addicts living in a degraded quarter of the outskirts of Lisbon. It's performed almost entirely by non-actors I mean by the drug addicts themselves who live before the camera as if it was not there, in a remarkable and genuine display of realism which impresses deeply our minds and feelings. These people whom we see verging slowly towards their own moral and physical ruin move before our eyes like ghosts still endowed with conscience and sentiments, capable of reasoning about their own disgrace in a very lucid way which makes us feel that we are in front of human beings after all, worth of our comprehension and compassion not to mention the fact of our own responsibility for that situation in this strange society we live in. This is the best movie about drug addicts I've ever seen and it should be seen mainly by those who persist in ignoring this problem or who think that it can be solved by fighting production and distribution of drugs instead of trying to fight consumption I mean deviating people chiefly youngsters from the inclination to consume drugs which will allow them to evade hardship and dullness of life. Although if it will be necessary to reform society for that purpose. The camera has apparently no leading role in this movie almost limiting itself to show us those people living (?) before our eyes. Their gestures, words, looks and above all their silences have so much weight on our hearts and minds that they are almost unbearable. After seeing this movie we can but feel that we all must do something and quickly.

I would love to say, like I read on this very site yesterday, before watching the film, that this is 'the best drug abuse film' but it really is not.

I don't want to come across as if I am saying this is lighthearted or lessen the impact of it in any way. It Is a harrowing study of some pretty messed up people. A woman who is immersed in drug-taking and nothing else in life. The people around her, everyone with the same story or problem, they ALL take drugs. It's sad to see.

Somewhere, behind those eyes you can see a pretty woman who must have had dreams once, her sister too...they are beautiful women gone sick and twisted.

I do agree that this film should be shown everywhere though, this is what drugs do to you! Or perhaps that should say, this is -what society that doesn't care does to you?!

Watch this. You will never see another film like it and for better or worse, you need to know it exists.

Vanda Duarte is a heroin addict living in Fontainhas, a slum district on the outskirts of Lisbon. She's the nominal star of this film, playing herself (as is everyone else in the film) usually smoking heroin and/or talking to someone else in her bedroom. The film follows her and other residents of the district taking drugs, working makeshift jobs and living in cramped, dilapidated rooms. There's no plot per se, but threads emerge as we return to the same people over the course of nearly three hours. A way of life emerges, and one that's threatened as we see the neighborhood slowing being torn down around them in the interests of urban renewal.

A three hour film with no real plot told in long static shots is a hard sell for many folks, but I found this to compelling and frequently mesmerizing. Usually I want a film to tell me a story, but sometimes taking me somewhere very different and dropping me in is enough ... and this film really drops you right in.

There's real art to this too. Pedro Costa composes his shots beautifully and uses minimal, natural lighting to create visuals not unlike Renaissance paintings. People sit in small pools of light with fairly vivid colors surrounded by pools of utter blackness. It creates real beauty out of squalor.

The fact that I watched this entire, nearly three-hour, film, despite the fact that it is basically a repetition of the same fifteen minutes over and over and over again, speaks volumes. The film is somehow intoxicating, even hypnotic, thus evoking the very sort of psychological affect which it portrays. Despite the fact that the film is extremely depressing and pointless, we continue on, just as the characters continue on with their depressing and pointless lives as they spend their days scraping heroin dust off of phone books and coughing like tuberculosis victims in between drags off of foil and cigarettes. The film, in other words, self-referentially reflects itself, which is probably why it received critical acclaim but is hated by some "ordinary" filmgoers.