“Materials. Pedro Costa”, burning urban collection – Liberation

Produced under the direction of two critics, a collection of essays and unpublished images plunge into the landscapes and figures of the work of the Portuguese filmmaker.

“What time is it ? Are you going to compress all that?” Compressed, maintenance that opens Materials. Pedro Costa is regarding sixty pages, and nothing would be taken away from it. Here is a book studded with ghost houses, holey roofs, doors without locks. We enter it through the photograms taken from the body of the films, and particularly, through urban plans. Produced under the direction of critics Luc Chessel – regular contributor to the cinema pages of Release – and Cyril Neyrat, this collection of essays first takes us through the self-constructed popular neighborhoods on the outskirts of Lisbon, which the Portuguese author has placed at the center of his cinema. That is to say, his work, because work is a big topic here. Pedro Costa can be an intimidating figure to dip your toe into the work for the first time. A hieratic, taciturn, austere work, one is tempted to think. But burning with an intransigent humanism that seizes us, with a grace that gives the impression of lying very close to the tragic marginals of bones, In Vanda’s room, Forward youth… And lately, Vitalina Varela, whose theatrical release on January 12 coincides with the publication of this admirable sum of unpublished texts and images, by Editions de l’œil. 480 pages in total, it’s not too much to marry the ethics of a filmmaker riveted to a magnificent obsession: “Regaining time, which has always been the enemy of people.”

Materials. Pedro Costa, under the direction of Luc Chessel and Cyril Neyrat, Editions de l’œil, 480 pp., 40 euros.