Pedro Costa's Horse Money is the type of beguiling experience where even if you struggle to follow much of what the filmmaker is trying to say, the visual storytelling is so strong that the overall intention of the film will stay with you long after the closing credits. Horse Money, for lack of a better word, is a work of art, with every image, every frame even, eliciting a harrowing sense of isolation and alienation. A tone poem of sorts, Horse Money is a portrait of Ventura, a Cape Verdean immigrant living in Lisbon. Between his numbing hospital stays and the seemingly constant bureaucratic questioning which seems to follow Ventura wherever he goes, Horse Money paints a vivid portrait of an impoverished and marginalized man. Costa's shadowy expressionistic lighting, coupled with the crumbling structures evoke an atmosphere of suffering and oppression, where anger, loss and pain are merely a part of everyday life for Ventura. Horse Money is a film that will frustrate many unfamiliar with Pedro Costa's work, being a film thats cohesiveness isn't entirely necessary, given the film's intent to explore the psychological purgatory of its characters. Effectively getting into the head space of the damaged man, Pedro Costa creates a singular, expressionistic portrait of sorrow and dementia, where sorrow and pain infest this character's head-space. The line between fact and fiction blurs as we get into the heads-space of this marginalized man, with his memories providing subtext as to what he has been through. Audiences unfamiliar with Pedro Costa will indubitably write off Horse Money as incomprehensible due to the filmmaker's penchant for artistry and atmosphere of narrative, but for those willing to be patient, there is no denying that what Pedro Costa has created is another vivid portrait of the marginalized individual who is almost certain to be forgotten.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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