User Reviews

...you walking down a street and suddently you see this big house, with columns and everything, just like those in the magazines ! "Wow! The house of my dreams" You don't know that inside, the house is a labyrinth, where the sun don't shine. What you don't understand is that is not the house of your dreams. Is the house that someone said that would be your dream. You are in Hollywood, where every dream is managed, manipulated. With great marketing, a movie like " BLAIR WITCH PROJECT " is a star. You are the sheep that follows the shepard

Some time later, you come to Europe. To a place where houses are simple, discret and honest. But warm, kind, where the sun shines. There's joy, dreams, everything! The furniture is placed carefully. Each piece has a reason for its place. You can fly! This house only comes in the good books of architecture.

MIES VAN DER ROHE said once " LESS IS MORE ". The simple things in life are the hardest to achieve. But are the best !

Have you already learned the path to the simple life? "Akasha" gives you a hand...

I normally don't come here to write comments, but after having seen the budget I just had to! I knew it was a no budget but that is just ridiculous! Is that for real?? Well, that will teach Hollywood! LOL I think it's amazing how someone can make a film like that! Anyway, I enjoyed the film very much (I also didn't get it all), there are some great parts and others strange, to say the least. But it's a very interesting low budget (well, NO budget LOL) film. Ok, I confess, I love low budget and indie films. Ah and the music is great, I would even buy the cd, is it on sale?

I had already seen a short film of this director in Fantasporto and I've loved its mise-en- scène and soundtrack. Thus, when I've realized that a new short film was present in Fantasporto I immediately decided to see it. This film caused intrigue. No one is indifferent to it, even if you don't understand the main plot. This is why this movie captivates and makes you to look forward the unveiling of the 'enigma'. Yes… in a certain way I felt like I was searching for the enigma. Dream, reality, fiction… who's who? A spirit that appears, a group that gathers in a house. The closes up, the way the camera moves and the music… I've heard some persons to compare him to David Linch, but honestly this film fascinated me more than the few films of David Linch I've seen. In my opinion David Linch produces films only for him and only for him to understand, almost never allowing the viewer to reach a reasonable conclusion in his head. João Costa Menezes makes films that make you think and gives you the 'space' to draw your own conclusions. To point out that he was able to produce this film in a short period of time and with lack of financial resources. I think what he'll be able to do with better resources

There is obviously a really good idea at the heart of this film.

I love the basic production set up and as a whole the film feels

fresh and naturalistic to me. A few times I wondered how much was scripted and how much

was 'real'. Would love to see other films by this writer/director.

I had the chance to see Akasha at the Fantasporto Film Festival in a second preview (by luck, due to the fact that the film had so much success amongst the public when first screened) and, well, lucky me. What got me in Akasha was the honesty of a committed work; it is obviously a film with no budget, made out of sheer passion and love to cinema.

The images are of an enormous beauty and filled with poetry. They are images that transmit us feelings of love to life and simultaneously non attachment, passing through, transitorily. The script is interesting and I believe the film transmit it in an effective way. I had heard before of this director because of his short film `Zero' that I regret I hadn't had the chance to see. And I hope I can follow closely the career of this new Portuguese director.

This is a rather difficult film to comment.. To start with, I had problems in understanding it.. there was so much information, so many mixture of formats, so many things unexplained.. and also the fact that it was bi-lingual (another interesting experiment that didn't quite work for me..) didn't help. There were some interesting concepts there: I liked the "shadow people versus ghost people" part (and the explanation of reality versus unreality through numbers) but then it was all left like that, without further explanation. I would like to see these concepts developed in a future film though. What exactly happened there? I'm not sure, but my guess is that nothing really happened. The beginning and the end were shot in a completely different way than the rest of the film. I suppose it had to do with the reality versus unreality. The beginning was beautifully shot on film and then for about 15-20 minutes it was shot on video as an amateur movie. It was strange, even though I think it worked on making the audience believe everything was really happening and not staged (was it?...) Then, as it seemed it would go on like that until the end (handheld video camera and lots of talking), slowly it developed into a horror/thriller film, even though always strange. Towards the end there were some intense moments and then it ended as it started, beautifully and calmly, in an anti-climax (and non-commercial) ending (after the growing tension). Overall, an interesting experimental piece that mixed film with video art but maybe a bit too ambitious.

This film is a bizarre and uncompromising film which nobody (or very few people) understands, including myself. In spite of this, or because of it, I think Menezes has proved to be an individual of rare genius and insight which I respect and consider as a film director.