104. Vitalina Varela; movie review

VITALINA VARELA
Cert 12A
125 mins
BBFC advice: Contains infrequent moderate sex references

We are in the 21st century and so it is hard to believe the conditions in which some people live in Europe.
This applies particularly to immigrants despite the lie that they all scrounging off states and living in the lap of luxury.
The truth is likely to be much nearer the medieval-type housing in which Vitalina Varela finds herself in Lisbon.
Yep, when I first saw the squalid home with no toilet and scarcely a roof I thought it must have been in her home in Cape Verde.
Actually, this was a definite downgrade.
Pedro Costa's film follows Vitalina (played by herself), a woman left behind in Cape Verde when her husband leaves to find work in Portugal. 
Decades later, she takes her much-anticipated journey there, arriving three days after he has been buried.
Despite a warning that she won't be welcome as the gets of the plane, she is determined to see her husband's home and understand the life for which he left her.
This is a startling true story, starring a woman who lived it and unprofessional actors who play out a story they know.
It is a tale in the shadows and they play a key part in evoking its atmosphere.
However, the camera lingers so long that on several occasions I thought that my private screener link had stuck.
Indeed, I found I hard to concentrate for its two hours because of its deliberately slow pace. I get ants in my pants watching movies like this.
But it did provoke thought or even pity for people who lead such impoverished lives with only a flicker of hope that they might break the cycle.

Reasons to watch: An expose of real poverty
Reasons to avoid: It is deliberately slow

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 6/10

Did you know? In Lisbon, the area of Cova da Moura is a warren of small streets where Cape Verdeans make up two-thirds of the 6,000 residents.

The final word. Pedro Costa: "I’m doing films among a very disoriented community: once they were peasants, then they were immigrants and they were brutally exploited. I’m working in the middle of confusion, and it’s risky. My job as a filmmaker is also to not betray the trust they offer me, their life secrets, their dignity, their intimacy."

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