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Colossal Youth



Across the course of history, only a relative handful of filmmakers can be said to have developed and refined a language of cinematographic expression which, inimitable, belongs to its creator alone. Pedro Costa, of our time, exists within this select group, and Colossal Youth is one of his sublime achievements.

An intimate epic wherein present and past move as one, Colossal Youth chronicles Ventura, the towering Cape Verdean who has assumed the role of surrogate "father" to an untold number of characters around Lisbon and its now-razed neighbourhood of Fontaínhas. Through Ventura's ghost-like visitations to figures such as Vanda Duarte (the central personage of Costa's previous In Vanda's Room) and repeated recollections of his past life as a newly migrated manual labourer, Costa explores the nature, and necessity, of storytelling in the course of the human adventure.

As with In Vanda's Room, Colossal Youth lays bare the residence of documentary inside of fiction (and vice-versa) using a digital video aesthetic in which every single image resonates with an indescribably poetic and rarefied force. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Colossal Youth in concert with Costa's complementary short works Tarrafal, The Rabbit Hunters, and Our Man – all for the first time in the UK.

SPECIAL 2-DISC DVD EDITION INCLUDING:

• Director-approved transfer of the feature, presented in its original 25fps playback speed
• Newly translated optional English subtitles
• New and exclusive 17-minute video piece filmed at the Tate Modern, London, featuring Pedro Costa discussing Colossal Youth
• Original trailer for the film
• Three shorter works by Pedro Costa which complement Colossal Youth: Tarrafal (2007, 17 minutes); The Rabbit Hunters (2007, 27 minutes); and the first home video release of Costa's most recent work, Our Man (2010, approx. 23 minutes)
• Finding the Criminal (2010, 120 minutes) — a new film by Craig Keller, featuring Pedro Costa in a 2008 conversation with Keller and Andy Rector on the history of cinema, cinema aesthetics, politics, music, and discovery
• A 56-page full-colour booklet containing writing on the film by French philosopher Jacques Rancière; an essay by the legendary Portuguese critic João Bénard da Costa; a facsimile reproduction of Ventura's letter from the film; and more

Per MoC's Twitter, this release will include a new 25-minute Costa film, O nosso Homem (Our Man).

And is 2 discs.

COLOSSAL YOUTH
A film by Pedro Costa
2006
Portugal
149 minutes
1.33:1 original aspect ratio

Across the course of history, only a relative handful of filmmakers can be said to have developed and refined a language of cinematographic expression which, inimitable, belongs to its creator alone. Pedro Costa, of our time, exists within this select group, and Colossal Youth is one of his sublime achievements.

An intimate epic wherein present and past move as one, Colossal Youth chronicles Ventura, the towering Cape Verdean who has assumed the role of surrogate "father" to an untold number of characters around Lisbon and its now-razed neighbourhood of Fontaínhas. Through Ventura's ghost-like visitations to figures such as Vanda Duarte (the central personage of Costa's previous In Vanda's Room) and repeated recollections of his past life as a newly migrated manual labourer, Costa explores the nature, and necessity, of storytelling in the course of the human adventure.

As with In Vanda's Room, Colossal Youth lays bare the residence of documentary inside of fiction (and vice-versa) using a digital video aesthetic in which every single image resonates with an indescribably poetic and rarefied force. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Colossal Youth in concert with Costa's complementary short works Tarrafal, The Rabbit Hunters, and Our Man – all for the first time in the UK.

SPECIAL 2-DISC DVD EDITION INCLUDING:

• Director-approved transfer of the feature, presented in its original 25fps playback speed
• Newly translated optional English subtitles
• New and exclusive 17-minute video piece filmed at the Tate Modern, London, featuring Pedro Costa discussing Colossal Youth
• Original trailer for the film
• Three shorter works by Pedro Costa which complement Colossal Youth: Tarrafal (2007, 17 minutes); The Rabbit Hunters (2007, 27 minutes); and the first home video release of Costa's most recent work, Our Man (2010, approx. 23 minutes)
• Finding the Criminal (2010, 120 minutes) — a new film by Craig Keller, featuring Pedro Costa in a 2008 conversation with Keller and Andy Rector on the history of cinema, cinema aesthetics, politics, music, and discovery
• A 56-page full-colour booklet containing writing on the film by French philosopher Jacques Rancière; an essay by the legendary Portuguese critic João Bénard da Costa; a facsimile reproduction of Ventura's letter from the film; and more

You've definitely put forth stiff competition with the criterion.

This looks like one of MoC's mightiest packages yet. I didn't think it was possible to get me to double dip on the film, but here I am, drooling over 143 minutes of exclusive supplements and a big fat booklet. Hot dog.

160 minutes!

You can correct my faulty math all you want, I'm still going to buy your DVD.

The beautiful cover and booklet weren't enough to make me double dip on this; but seeing those extras... Count me in! Bravo on including his latest short too, I know nothing about it, but if it's on a par with Tarrafal, Rabbit Hunters or Ne Change Rien then it's sure to be great...

A little more info on O nosso Homem from David Hudson.

peerpee wrote:160 minutes!

204, in fact. \:D/

tenia wrote:

peerpee wrote:160 minutes!

204, in fact. \:D/

It's 160, but hey that's still great!

Peacock wrote:

tenia wrote:

peerpee wrote:160 minutes!

204, in fact. \:D/

It's 160, but hey that's still great!

It's 204, but now two people have stated 160, I'm not so sure anymore.

204 includes two films that were on the Criterion release. It's 160 without them.

swo17 wrote:204 includes two films that were on the Criterion release. It's 160 without them.

Ah ok. Now, I understand where that came from.
Still, like he said :

What A Disgrace wrote:You can correct my faulty math all you want, I'm still going to buy your DVD.

Can anyone explain why first Criterion, and now MoC have chosen to release Pedro Costa films specifically not in hi-def? Is it because the digital camera Costa used to film Vanda's Room and Colossal Youth did not record in hi-def, and thus it would be pointless to do an HD transfe and release it on BD/dual format? This is the only reason I can think of.

Jazzkammer wrote:Can anyone explain why first Criterion, and now MoC have chosen to release Pedro Costa films specifically not in hi-def? Is it because the digital camera Costa used to film Vanda's Room and Colossal Youth did not record in hi-def, and thus it would be pointless to do an HD transfe and release it on BD/dual format? This is the only reason I can think of.

Ding ding ding. SD video is the issue.

Yes, for COLOSSAL and VANDA -- but OSSOS was shot on 35mm and would make an excellent Blu-ray.

peerpee wrote:Yes, for COLOSSAL and VANDA -- but OSSOS was shot on 35mm and would make an excellent Blu-ray.

We'll take that as a 'Cue yourself' then.

Wow - it looks much sharper than the Criterion. Double-dip, without question.

Given the DV source, presumably the Criterion would unavoidably be a PAL-NTSC conversion?

I'm sure they did it far more conscientiously than many other labels would have done, but clearly a native PAL transfer is the way to go with this film.

Has anyone noticed a bit of glitchyness during the Costa interview on disc one? About 4 minutes and 9 seconds in the picture breaks up and then costa's voice goes out of sync. This lasts for about a minute. It's not a big issue for me as it's only an interview not the film and you can still hear everything that's said perfectly, I just wondered if it's a common thing or just my disc.

Everything else on the discs is fine. I didn't know Costa's work before this and I must say I was very impressed. I hope MOC will release more of his films - maybe that's what the #109 and #110 gaps in the catalogue are?

I can understand that such titles would not benefit much from BR in picture quality, but at least it would all fit on one disc. i wonder if a release like CY would be on BR if companies like Eureka didnt still have a part of their public being without a BR setup.

windowside wrote:I can understand that such titles would not benefit much from BR in picture quality, but at least it would all fit on one disc. i wonder if a release like CY would be on BR if companies like Eureka didnt still have a part of their public being without a BR setup.

Unlikely - it's still a fair bit more expensive to master to Blu-ray, and if "being able to fit it all on one disc" is literally the only real benefit from going down that route, what's the point?

So even if the market wasn't demonstrably smaller (as you acknowledge), there's no particularly good argument for doing it like that- not least because you're bound to get people saying "It looks crap! How did Eureka ever think they could get away with such a blatant upscale?" thanks to inflated and unrealistic expectations. And we've seen on countless occasions just how quickly unhelpful and inaccurate rumours can spread online.