Pedro Costa's snail-paced evocation of an old man dislocated in time and place, "Colossal Youth" (Juventude em Marcha), has some arresting images and an interesting central character but its lack of narrative pace will exhaust the patience of most audiences.

A semi-documentary, it tells of a man named simply Ventura who is among the last to be moved from a deteriorating slum in northwest Lisbon to a brand new but sterile city apartment block. For 2 hours and 25 minutes, Ventura visits various men and women who may or may not be his children and the camera sits quietly as they tell their stories.

Some of them are harrowing although most are mundane, but Ventura listens and frequently quotes from an unwritten but memorized letter to his departed wife that includes promises of 100,000 cigarettes, a dozen fancy dresses and a car.

Costa plants his digital camera on a tripod using available light and lets his non-actors ramble, often tediously. The contrast between the crumbling but atmospheric old quarter and the pristine but characterless new complex would be so much more effective with a little camera movement.

Ventura has all the things the movies love -- graceful motion, a good voice, and a face filled with life's experience. He could have ranked alongside the wonderful old men portrayed by Burt Lancaster in "Atlantic City" and Dexter Gordon in "Round Midnight" but Costa's boring film frustratingly fails to do him justice.

'Colossal Youth' (Juventude em Marcha)
Contracosta, Les Films de l'Etranger, Unlimited, Ventura Film