Ossos
Director: Pedro Costa
Year Released: 1997
Rating: 1.5
A loathsome young couple has a baby neither of them wants to take care of: the father wants to sell it while its mother wants to go to the club; others try to intervene - particularly a doctor - but the prospects for their domestic situation improving is unlikely. Bleak, plodding and kind of confusing, Costa believes that letting the shots carry on past what would normally be their natural end point makes them more powerful, but it's hard to feel any remorse for ciphers (even as those ciphers stare into the distance and suck down Marlboro after Marlboro). At least in Costa's Colossal Youth, he included a strong, sympathetic guide (Ventura) through the slums; here, the slums have to speak for themselves.
