• Ossos is Pedro Costa’s third film, and first in the Fontainhas trilogy – the name of a destitute section of Lisbon.
  • Costa largely uses a stationary camera (he has one very long tracking shot of the father walking down the street), deliberately paced—often objects or people will move into the frame—not the other way around
  • The DP is Emmanuel Machuel who worked with Bresson on L’Argent and Costa, like Bresson, uses non-professional actors (and mostly throughout his work—aside from Down to Earth)
  • Heavy realism in the themes- suicide and poverty— on paper it sounds like a Dardenne film (they are contemporaries)—we have a young dad left with an infant. But Costa isn’t really interested in the intricacies and moral decisions that have to be made to survive—he is more interested in tone, lighting, faces and location. Much of this is without dialogue- there are maybe 25 words in the first 20 minutes. No musical score—you can hear the neighbor’s music, lots of dogs barking
  • Damp, darkly lit alleys, stairwells with graffiti
  • Doors, windows (Renoir/Antonioni) and alleys (Ozu) are very important to Costa- a great shot at the 53-minute mark with the door open a splice like the final shot in The Irishman. A repeated shot of a door ajar as the character cleans the apartment

a great shot at the 53-minute mark with the door open a splice like the final shot in The Irishman

windows….

…doors…

…and alleys are very important to Costa– on paper this sounds like a Dardenne film– but Costa is more interested in tone, location, lighting and faces

  • A shot from Antonioni’s L’Eclisse as the two women are split by a pole dividing the frame
  • Solemn—empty lifeless faces
  • Another very nice shot at 79 minutes—three women split up by two sets of windows

Another very nice shot at 79 minutes—three women split up by two sets of windows

  • Recommend but not in the top 10 of 1997