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.
13 Reviews
in vanda's room
mossgrymk19 October 2022
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.
Bottom line: Next time I wish to visit Portugal vicariously I'll crack open a can of sardines. C plus.
A really gorgeous portrait of squalor
rdoyle291 November 2022
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.
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.
An Absolute Masterpiece! One of the most powerful films ever!
john_parker29 January 2003
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
Somehow Hypnotic
skepticskeptical28 October 2021
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.
artfully filmed, deceptive
ganderkay26 September 2011
I found myself wondering, 'what is real in this film, and what did the director add, if anything?' It is a portrait of everyone, not just 'lowly' drug users. And no, the reviewer who claimed a 'well trained dog' could film a movie such as this is probably a 12 year old, especially since many scenes do not take place in a)a structure being demolished, b) many characters depicted are not using drugs, and etc etc... just a terrible review from someone whose favorite movie is probably 'Thor'. I also loved the soundscapes - all of the noise of commerce, music, and yes, demolition. I think it is interesting to witness the visual transformation that occurs within this trilogy of films. Very poetic and empathetic; loving, almost.
docu style
SnoopyStyle12 September 2022
Vanda Duarte is a heroin addict in Lisbon. She and her family live in a crumbling building in the slums. It's a fictional story filmed in the documentary style. It's as realistic as fake gets. I would wonder if I didn't know the truth of the fictionalization. Maybe I would think that this is the real thing. It is rather long at almost three hours. It's basically an experimental film but it's a really good one. I'm willing to sit through the three hours but some of this is a bit too dark. The filmmaker obviously did not want to use too much artificial lighting. There is some great shadow use. The biggest trade-off is that some of this film comes off as a black blank. The setting is terrific. They are using the real places. The drug use looks real although I don't have the experience to judge. All in all, this is good work.
Imploding worlds
kata-rokar6 August 2014
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.
Exploitation
fullfemale13 April 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Other viewers are apparently moved by what they see on the screen- a tale of social and moral decay, and a call to our sympathies and outrage. The film doesn't appeal to me in that way, because I can't help but be aware of the filmmaker, whose presence looms over everything and who is the real character of the film. What's he's done is gone into a poetically haunting and inherently tragic environment and attempted to "capture" it. In this sense the film is closer to photography than to a film, although it retains a sort of loose narrative. The fact that we do look down on these people and make moral judgments about them is what make the film exploitative. Costa takes the most disenfranchised, powerless people with no will to live and makes a career and critical fame from it, while the drug addicts in the film stay where they are, which is hopeless and dying, and then we get to hear from him when he screens the film that many did die. In this sense it's almost a SNUFF film.
Of course we are going to feel something about that, especially when it is all beautifully lit and framed to look like a painting. Costa claims to admire John Ford. Well, John Ford was making myths, and so is Costa. I just question the sort of myth-making he is engaging in, and the moral implications of it. He gets to sit around and live with these people who are dying, capture them aesthetically with his camera, get them to work and learn lines and repeat their own dialogues for camera takes without pay, and then takes these voyeuristic images and shows them to a privileged middle-class Western audience to admire at film festivals,so they can "feel a little something."
If he had used actors I would feel differently, but then the film would have a totally different quality. Actors are paid to be used like props and furniture, and actors are not usually captured in the state of dying.
Of course we are going to feel something about that, especially when it is all beautifully lit and framed to look like a painting. Costa claims to admire John Ford. Well, John Ford was making myths, and so is Costa. I just question the sort of myth-making he is engaging in, and the moral implications of it. He gets to sit around and live with these people who are dying, capture them aesthetically with his camera, get them to work and learn lines and repeat their own dialogues for camera takes without pay, and then takes these voyeuristic images and shows them to a privileged middle-class Western audience to admire at film festivals,so they can "feel a little something."
If he had used actors I would feel differently, but then the film would have a totally different quality. Actors are paid to be used like props and furniture, and actors are not usually captured in the state of dying.
A Masterpiece! One of the best films of 2000.
john_parker26 January 2003
«No Quarto da Vanda» is one of the most powerful films that i have ever seen.It´s a perfect picture of our actual reality. Drugs are the cause of poverty in a great amount of civilized and non-civilized countries.
Pedro Costa´s «No Quarto da Vanda» is certainly an alert for those people that still live in a magic world full of happiness and joy... Impressive and cruelly real!
Luis Mendonça, John-Parker. 10/10.
Pedro Costa´s «No Quarto da Vanda» is certainly an alert for those people that still live in a magic world full of happiness and joy... Impressive and cruelly real!
Luis Mendonça, John-Parker. 10/10.
Unwatchable
gbill-7487726 October 2022
A miserable film, and a miserable 3 hour film at that. I would have loved to have known more about the people in this Lisbon slum, aside from the obvious squalor of their condition and frequent drug use. We get aimless conversations, a lot of coughing, and people literally living in shadows, with their faces rarely shown. There's probably a point to that along the lines of these little lives being so invisible to the rest of the world, but I think the film would have far more effective (and watchable!) had there been at least a semblance of structure, vs. Complete immersion into their impoverished world.
How did they come to be in this slum? If any are immigrants, where did they come from, and what was that journey like? When did they first start using drugs, and where do they get the money to buy them? What are their experiences with the outside world? Have they ever been in love, and when was the last time they smiled? Do they go to school, do they work, do they have any dreams of a better life? And while the city is demolishing a lot of the buildings in the neighborhood, what is its position on the people living there?
Instead of answering these kinds of questions, we get tediously long scenes of mundane behavior and banal conversation in dingy, poorly lit rooms. There is certainly a sense of reality here, of showing people at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum living their humble lives day after day, and maybe there is great humanism in that. Life is a struggle. Despite that, people continue on. I think the film may remind us that people in slums are human beings since they're so easily generalized in negative ways, but on the other hand, it could have done better in this regard had it fleshed them out as much as it had shown them taking drugs. Perhaps implicitly the film may also be saying, you who are watching this arthouse film, be thankful for what you have in life, that you hadn't been born into an existence like this. If I'm anywhere close to Pedro Costa's intentions behind his unrelenting realism hallelujah, but it's a miss in terms of how he executed, and regardless, I'd definitely never want to watch any part of this again.
How did they come to be in this slum? If any are immigrants, where did they come from, and what was that journey like? When did they first start using drugs, and where do they get the money to buy them? What are their experiences with the outside world? Have they ever been in love, and when was the last time they smiled? Do they go to school, do they work, do they have any dreams of a better life? And while the city is demolishing a lot of the buildings in the neighborhood, what is its position on the people living there?
Instead of answering these kinds of questions, we get tediously long scenes of mundane behavior and banal conversation in dingy, poorly lit rooms. There is certainly a sense of reality here, of showing people at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum living their humble lives day after day, and maybe there is great humanism in that. Life is a struggle. Despite that, people continue on. I think the film may remind us that people in slums are human beings since they're so easily generalized in negative ways, but on the other hand, it could have done better in this regard had it fleshed them out as much as it had shown them taking drugs. Perhaps implicitly the film may also be saying, you who are watching this arthouse film, be thankful for what you have in life, that you hadn't been born into an existence like this. If I'm anywhere close to Pedro Costa's intentions behind his unrelenting realism hallelujah, but it's a miss in terms of how he executed, and regardless, I'd definitely never want to watch any part of this again.
People on Drugs? Well, there's a bit more to it than that!
paulgeaf25 January 2011
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.
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.
plenty of CMF language
three-58 July 2005
I am Portuguese. This is, by far, the worst Portuguese movie I've ever seen. I very much doubt that anyone, not related with the people involved in this production, can stand its full length or have a positive opinion about it. After some 15 minutes, the film runs out of ideas and it becomes very *very* **very** hard to endure the remaining 15 minutes, let alone 155 minutes...
A well trained dog could replicate this crap. The recipe is: 1) don't move the camera; 2) sniff for a house in process of demolition; 3) tap record on the camera and let it register falling bricks; 4) find some junkies or junkies lookalike and ask them to speak about nothing, using plenty of C M F swearing language (C = c0ck, M = sh1t, F = f2ck). Bravo!
Worth zero. It is really that bad.
A well trained dog could replicate this crap. The recipe is: 1) don't move the camera; 2) sniff for a house in process of demolition; 3) tap record on the camera and let it register falling bricks; 4) find some junkies or junkies lookalike and ask them to speak about nothing, using plenty of C M F swearing language (C = c0ck, M = sh1t, F = f2ck). Bravo!
Worth zero. It is really that bad.
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