BONES

Ossos is the first film in Costa’s trilogy dedicated to the Fontainhas, a Lisbon neighbourhood that has since disappeared. The story of young people caught in a constant struggle to survive, with slim chances of success, is captured with tremendous compassion and tenderness, in a fiction that bears strong touches of documentary. The community in Fontainhas is caught in a repetitive mechanism of suffering, humiliation, human misunderstanding and cruelty that often takes unexpected forms. The conflict is not just a social one, Costa is much more subtle than that. The characters’ pasts, their memories and pure sense of humanity are in direct conflict with any form of alienation. Every day is a struggle for dignity. No matter how much we unravel the narrative thread, no matter how many portraits of characters are presented to us, an attempt to decipher their real “mystery” is futile. We can but observe – gestures of solidarity, of love, of joy mixed with sadness, small moments of grace in a place of despair. As with any film of Costa’s, the characters become more than just a mere representation, they are part of a specific universe that has its own rituals. (Cristi Luca)