In Vanda's Room

The Fontainhas quarter in Lisbon is being demolished. The crews work street by street and some of the houses are still occupied. Vanda sits in her room, takes heroin, and talks to her sister. On the other side of the wall, the sound of demolition. The film barely leaves that room. Pedro Costa directs. The method matters as much as the film. Costa worked with a small digital camera and almost no crew, going back to the neighbourhood over two years and accumulating hundreds of hours. The camera stays in one place, fixed, running for long stretches. Vanda Duarte is a real person living her own life; she is not an actor. Costa had worked with her before on Ossos, and this continues that acquaintance. The argument over whether it is documentary or fiction has never ended. The scenes were not written but the framing was meticulously built, the light was arranged, and some moments were repeated. Costa calls it neither. It runs close to three hours and almost nothing happens: coughing, talk, the preparation of drugs, and the demolition outside. The neighbourhood really was destroyed, and the film became the record of a place that no longer exists. Who it is for: viewers interested in contemporary art cinema and in the line between documentary and fiction. Who it is not for: it is genuinely long and static, and drug use is shown continuously and explicitly.