![](https://www.festivaldeipopoli.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/5-8.png)
DOWN TO EARTH
Casa de Lava
Portugal, France | 1994 | 110 min
Pedro Costa’s second feature is at once a swerve from and a follow-up to the previous O sangue, not to mention that it is the necessary stepping stone towards Ossos. The journey of Mariana, a nurse who escorts her comatose patient up to Cabo Verde experiencing first-hand how difficult the relationships with the local population are, in a radically hostile environment, is emblematic of the research that will be conducted by the Portuguese director through his filmmaking, increasingly focused on radically displaced characters who carry an invisible grief that is only perceived in their features, their harsh and impenetrable countenances. Costa’s gaze acquires the dimension of a quest – of a form and a universe that need be made visible. Nature and wilderness are not a mere backdrop, but places that heighten the tensions between the worlds - the urban, western one exemplified by Mariana and the one of the local inhabitants. Tensions that immediately turn into form of cinema. (d.d.)