Dans la chambre de Vanda

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.

Dark and intriguing as a hidden meandering well and beautiful like Venus on the half shell, this portraiture of humans living seamlessly in the safety of their adopted home had no real future in mind as they struggle to make ends meet day to day with a grace perhaps given by God himself. Their acceptance of unwavering need to support each other and eventually their need for altering the reality of being dug out of their lair-like homes seems to squeeze the youth and humor out of their souls and sadly transports it to the mysterious parchment they so avidly smoke as the ruination begins outside.

Oddly, it reminds me of certain times in my own childhood.

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.

Pedro Costa´s «No Quarto da Vanda» is a dramatic picture of our present reality with real people that live day after day trying to find a way to explain their actual state, as drug addicts. It is also a film about generations full of addictions and social problems that don´t have any solution yet... Powerful, contagious and extremely real this is «No Quarto da Vanda» , an absolute masterpiece! 10/10

You could plainfully say this is a movie about drugs and people taking drugs but then you'd have to take a closer look and another and yet another. In Vanda's Room is not about consumption of the body, it's about what roots us here on this earth. But is it real life? You have to wander about the nature and relationship of the director with all those characters. Are they even real? They don't seem like real people, sometimes it seems they're acting, sometimes it's real life. Is this a documentary or is this fiction? What's the nature of life? You'll find out you get a lot more questions than answers at the end of this fabulous piece of art. This is the story of an perfectly organized world suffering a true invasion - my machines who come to tear the Fontaínhas neighbourhood down, by men who think this is a junkies place. It's a world of rules as they come, it's a world of emotional need like everyone else's. It's just those people take drugs but drugs are a way of searching for care and comfort. This is a place of people and lives of people who want a place to call their own, despite whats inside. Amidst drug consumption and beyond consumption there are people who mourn the loss of their homes, who gets sad for feeling unrooted. While Fontainhas implode, so is everyone's own world falls apart, slowly, despite their senseless existence - apparently. They've got a strategy, a way to survive, a way to love, a way to cope. In Vanda's room some of the Fontaínhas people go in and Vanda also moves around Fontaínhas. This is not a movie about a neighbourhood and it is, it's about the micro and the macro focus, with specific and universal feelings. In the end, we are all a house who implodes against will.