Casa de Lava

director: Pedro Costa
year: 1995


A young nurse (Inês de Medeiros) accompanies a comatose immigrant worker (Isaach De Bankolé) from a hospital in Portugal to his home village in the Cape Verde islands. There, she opens her eyes and begins to explore both the land and its most-peculiar inhabitants.


Pedro Costa's Casa de Lava is a stamp collection: thousands and thousands of beautiful images, one after another, carefully and lovingly placed in a leather binder. But their organization, though fine, isn't absolute; it's one order, of many. Cut the film into shots and stitch it back together in another, and it retains it's beauty. What makes the film more than beautiful, however, is Costa's editing—the rhythms and patterns he creates. The binder is as fine as the stamps; the craftsmanship is as expert as the artistry. If Casa de Lava has a failing, it's in the storytelling: more evocative than narrative, more atmospheric than actual. Hence, while Costa's cinema will leave you satiated, it may also leave you feeling a bit unresolved.

I want to live in a Casa de Lava.