Costa’s earlier films have shown how his country’s history has left Cabo Verdeans wounded in ways that even he still struggles to understand. Vitalina Varela emphasizes that, even among the people connected by this collective experience, a gendered chasm yawns wide. Men have flocked to Portugal for work, while many women have stayed behind. This divide between the masculine sphere of hard metropolitan labor and the feminized motherland breeds fierce antagonisms. In one scene, Vitalina lets her fury lash out: “When you see a woman’s face in the coffin, you can’t imagine her suffering.” An enmity this deep seems irreparable within a world as drawn to stasis as Costa’s. Yet the film ends on a note of hope, even a kind of resurrection.
Source : Pedro Costa, Filming the Saga of Lisbon’s Cabo Verdeans
