Blood (1989)

Director: Pedro Costa

Screenplay: Pedro Costa

Cast: Pedro Hestnes as Vicente; Nuno Ferreira as Nino; Inês de Medeiros as Clara; Luís Miguel Cintra as the Uncle; Canto e Castro as the Father; Isabel de Castro as the Woman; Henrique Viana as the 1st Creditor; Luís Santos as the 2nd Creditor; Manuel João Vieira as Zeca; Sara Breia as Rosa

Cannon Fodder

[Cannon Fodder: Covering the work from directors/stars/movements that have appeared on the Abstract Canon list, will eventually will, or are personal favourites, or all three at once. Those works which would not qualify for said list.]

You're growing up too fast.

Pedro Costa's debut is completely alien to his later work. A lot changed in his filmmaking attitude, Blood still structured as a narratively paced production which instead shows the subtle little concepts that would eventually transfer to his non-narrative, abstract films like Horse Money (2014). Following two brothers, one a young adult/older teen Vincente (Pedro Hestnes) and his younger brother Nine (Nuno Ferreira), still a kid, the plot is conventionally structured but Costa does not signpost key plot points even with his debut. What is told subtly is that, living just with their father who is slowly succumbing to disease; this reaches a breaking point where it is very much implied Vincente has killed him, having to ask a close friend and potential love interest Clara (Inês de Medeiros) to help him bury the body in the middle of the night. Once the paternal figure is lost, the only possible income being assisting in a shady team of people shifting boxed goods, they with Clara have to fend for themselves. There is, however, the issue of two creditors appear after their late father's debts, and that their uncle appears, feeling the younger brother is not being cared for.

Blood is fascinating in the sense that, before he would evolve to a unique voice, he started on a project that is traditionally structured and created, but that a lot is here already that I was in danger of dismissing by forgetting details. Such as the fact, when watched, that even at his beginning, Costa was obsessed with saturation and shadows in his cinema. Shot in black and white, it is sumptuous to look at and Blood also exhibits the obsession Costa has talked of with classic Hollywood and American b-pictures, their aesthetic proving influence even decades later on the more experimental films. The influence clearly comes from their sense of environment, pulling a viewer into their worlds which would comes further in a film like Horse Money when cinematographer Leonardo Simões               started working on Costa's productions. Costa clearly, undeniably, is fascinated with Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955). Any body of water seen in the film, at night on a river, or involving a boat, is indebted to that film, and whilst his influences may seem paradoxical to his ideals in thought, the aesthetic richness is consistent to a later film like Horse Money, arguably becoming more atmospheric when he got to the later film and jettisoned the necessity of a narrative template.

Blood is a good debut - a drama which would be good in another person's career, but in mind to his career gains greater meaning knowing this was a debut he would build from greatly. There are quirks, such as the moments of levity, a God eye's view camera shot as those lovable if shifty merchandise sellers have to flee with boxes into vans and drive off, or that you even get instrumental synth pop in the soundtrack. It is still undeniably a bleak film at times though, where technically since it is set at Christmas it is a Christmas film, with even Santa Claus is Comin to Town in instrumental form sounding depressed. But, and this is a huge point to his work, he is still concerned for these characters, and neither is any of the trio of leads viewed with sympathy because they are poor or merely outsiders. In mind of how he would change, the changes in his films entirely comes from his introduction to the community of Fontainhas, in the mid nineties, where he was challenged for his storytelling and started working directly with the occupants of this community even long after it had vanished.

Even here with a more "commercial" film, the air quotes still needed, there is still the desire here to have a far more empathetic and deeper view of these characters. The two gangsters after money are revealed to be of a much complicated narrative, at least in terms of who they are with, the other major female figure that is as sympathetic as Clara, and even the uncle wants to do something meaningful in providing for the younger brother a better home. The probably with the later is that, even as someone who we should emphasis with for caring for a disabled infant son, he shows an obvious class bias, middle class to the lower class, in feeling he can make Nino "his son", to dine in restaurants now and watch cartoons on television when he was happier with a cheap pocket calculator for a Christmas gift. It does not help he kidnaps Nino too, nor shows contempt to Vicente and especially Clara, making cruel presumptions including calling her, a person who see work with and care for young children, a whore after money. The complexity offers sympathy for him, but also has this character's flaws are shown and very naturally.

In context, even if you had not seen many films by Costa, Blood is a minor film in his career even as someone who has so much more of his worlds to learn from. On his follow up Casa de Lava (1994), he reconsidered his work mid production and, between scrapping the original premise for a more unconventional structure, and eventually encountering the people of the Fontainhas on his return back to Portugal from Cape Verde, he would change to the future filmmaker he became.  I can already tell, compared to one later film, that this film still had to struggle against its own plotting when its creator will find a greater depth later. But that is not to dismiss the film entirely, as Blood still is admirable. Instead, view it that merely he showed a capability to make a sincere film of great worth but that he evolved drastically to something of a unique voice. Here, making for himself a conventional film, he showed his talent and it would flourish.