Pedro Costa’s latest film, “Horse Money” (Cavalo Dinheiro, 2014), is ever more austere, stripped down. His ancient avatar from earlier films, the hypnotically present Ventura, is caught in a lifetime’s workings of dream, a ghost bumping through memory elongated into moment and collapsed onto another. The look is penumbra beneath penumbra atop cloacal darks, the fissures of post-colonial Portugal literalized but resistant to interpretation beyond gorgeous, obstinate portraiture. Tableau succeeds tableau, connections elided, meaning elusive. There is poetry and there is impatience. There are silences. 105m. (Ray Pride)
“Horse Money” opens Friday, January 8 at Siskel. The U.S. trailer is below.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Uncanny Ally: A Review Of M3GAN "M3GAN" sells itself in its first handful of seconds in how it introduces the handiwork of roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams, "Get Out") and her present product, PurrPetual Petz from Funki.
