CASA DE LAVA
A film by Pedro Costa
1994, 105 minutes
1994, 105 minutes
No. 023
NARRATIVE
NARRATIVE
Description
In only his second feature, Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa (Horse Money, In Vanda's Room) brilliantly reworked Jacques Tourneur's classic I Walked with a Zombie into a reflection on his country’s colonial legacy.
A nurse, Mariana (Inês Medeiros), accompanies Leão (Isaach De Bankole) to his home on the volcanic islands of Cape Verde after an accident sends him into a coma. Yet he goes unrecognized by fellow denizens, leaving Mariana trapped with and eventually entranced by a mysterious community.
Never before released in the U.S. and now beautifully restored, Casa de Lava foreshadows the masterful films that would follow, yet is an extraordinary, ravishing work in its own right.
A nurse, Mariana (Inês Medeiros), accompanies Leão (Isaach De Bankole) to his home on the volcanic islands of Cape Verde after an accident sends him into a coma. Yet he goes unrecognized by fellow denizens, leaving Mariana trapped with and eventually entranced by a mysterious community.
Never before released in the U.S. and now beautifully restored, Casa de Lava foreshadows the masterful films that would follow, yet is an extraordinary, ravishing work in its own right.
Reviews
“New enigmas reveal themselves with each new viewing.”
– Jacques Rivette
“An elliptical, deeply mysterious ghost story.” —The Nation
“Costa creates moody, luminous tableaux to conjure an incantatory, Faulknerian earthiness." —The New Yorker
“An elliptical, deeply mysterious ghost story.” —The Nation
“Costa creates moody, luminous tableaux to conjure an incantatory, Faulknerian earthiness." —The New Yorker
