Pedro Costa

A few years ago I remember reading about Abbas Kiarostami and his shift to digital film making.  He talked about how the accessibility and freedom of the digital camera could enable a lot more people to make movies. He made the comparison that the digital camera to a filmmaker was now closer to being like a pen for a writer.

The ideas that he presented were interesting to me but I didn't think on it too much until recently.  I began watching some films by Pedro Costa and realized that I was seeing the embodiment of Kiarostami's digital ideal.  One film in particular, In Vanda's Room (2000), left the kind of impression on me that took time to decipher. Something about the look of the obvious digital footage removed the distance from the people that I was watching, the textures and smells of the room were nearly perceivable. Through the digital medium Costa has been able to strip away a further layer of distance from his subject matter.  In Vanda's Room goes beyond the documentary influenced film, existing somewhere in between genres and aesthetic styles.

It makes digital cinematography feel like it is something completely separate from black & white and colour film. For me this is what is exciting about digital, the opportunity for a new aesthetic, not using it to mimic film.

There is a quote at the beginning of the trailer below that says that 21st century cinema begins with In Vanda's Room (Shigehiko Hasumi), though this statement is probably going a bit too far (almost worthy of a trademark Godard quote) I don't feel like it is completely unfounded.