Casa de Lava (1994)

Director:

Pedro Costa

Writer:

Pedro Costa

Stars:

Inês de Medeiros, Isaach De Bankolé, Edith Scob

2 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Inês de Medeiros	...	Mariana (as Inês Medeiros)
Isaach De Bankolé	...	Leão
Edith Scob	...	Edite
Pedro Hestnes	...	Edite's Son
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Cristiano Andrade Alves	...	Tano
Antônio Andrade	...	Kilim
Daniel Andrade	...	Nhelas
Manuel Andrade	...	Tcheka
Raul Andrade	...	Bassoé
Joaquim Antunes	...	Pilot 1
Monica Calle	...	Enfermeira em Lisboa
Joaquim Carvalho	...	Pilot 2
Luís Miguel Cintra	...	Actor convidado
Isabel de Castro	...	Actriz convidada
João Gomes de Pina	...	Bassora

Storyline

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Madragoa Films (Portuguese/English)

Country:

Portugal France Germany

Language:

Portuguese Kabuverdianu

Release Date:

10 February 1995 (Portugal)

Also Known As:

Down to Earth

Filming Locations:

Cape Verde

Company Credits

Production Co:

Madragoa Filmes, Gemini Films, Pandora Filmproduktion

Technical Specs

Runtime:

110 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Featured in Cinema Português? (1997)

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Soundtracks

"Morna das sombras"
Lyrics by Robert Desnos
Music by Raul Andrade
Performed by Raul Andrade

User Reviews

Burn, baby, burn

Portuguese director Pedro Costa directs "Down to Earth" (aka "House of Larva"). Like many of his other features - "Bones", "Vanda's Room", "Colossal Youth" - the film blends minimalism with surrealism, utilizes a non professional cast and is set in contemporary Cape Verde, an island off the North Western coast of Africa.

The film revolves around two characters, Mariana, a Portuguese nurse assigned to Cape Verde from Lisbon, and Leao, a black patient who awakes from a coma following a construction accident. Strangely, Leao resents being alive. He resents being back in Cape Verde, an enmity which Mariana senses and gradually begins to understand as the continuing legacy of both colonialism and the European slave trade begin to become apparent to her. It's a legacy that has scarred Cape Verde, and induced in Mariana a kind of coma or sickness akin to Leao's.

Throughout the film Costa repeatedly cuts to shots of festering volcanoes, their bubbling cisterns threatening to violently explode. Such shots are suggestive of the plight of Cape Verde's population (and migrant workers), all of whom are on the verge of economic extinction. The volcano's's bubbling larva also alludes to the populace's growing, mounting disdain, its pyroclasic flow pointing to some future, potential uprising. See Gillo Pontecorvo's "Burn!".

8/10 – Worth one viewing.