"To master the chaos of oneself."
JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD
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Dedicated to the memory of Marcello Mastroianni
I know what you mean, Judite,
but you cannot, I know, ignore the age difference
between you and me.
You are unconsciously ageist,
you tolerate me
the way young people tolerate old people nowadays.
You don't understand, Manoel.
I didn't say that.
I respect you enormously,
not just as a person but for what you are.
An important director.
Exactly. As Duarte says, an important and old director.
- You're twisting things. - I am not twisting anything!
Your kind head would see life other than as it is.
My dear actress,
the different layers of life are impermeable to one another.
There you go!
What I like most about you
is your penetrating wit,
your gift for analysis.
That's good, Judite, you really speak well.
What about the wrapping?
- Wrapping? What's wrong with it? - The mortal wrapping is...
Because the mind is fine, it can even improve,
but the wrapping deteriorates.
I even use a walking-stick now.
There you go again!
That is how it is!
You need a stick
because you fell and twisted your ankle.
You both talk so well!
You pity me, don't you?
No, not that! You're being sentimental.
Talking of which, I recon...
that between an actress and the director
there's always an undercurrent.
I mean, in general.
Yes! In general!
But usually, Afonso,
the undercurrent
is between the young star and her seducer.
In that case, age differences don't count.
You may laugh, but it will happen to you.
Old age and illness keeps people at bay.
Not to mention the opposite sex.
Young people want young people
and leave older people,
old wrecks,
as the road beneath our wheels leaves us.
Come now, my dear director,
my poor little wreck, don't make me cry.
I'll shut up now.
I shan't, my dear actress.
Some people would happily see one in the grave,
buried alive. I don't mean you of course.
That would be hurtful.
I couldn't hurt you. Though some would love it.
For different reasons. Jealousy!
Talking of which, tell me,
if you heard I'd said unpleasant things about you,
which I haven't,
would you believe it?
Really, Manoel!
Let's talk about something else.
Yes, let's.
Soon, my friends, we shall see places I once knew well,
I haven't been here for ages.
So... it's not just Afonso.
This is memory lane for our director,
he too is killing his "saudade."
Memories!
My father spoke of "saudade!"
Yes, memories beckon.
That's why you have come.
"Saudades."
That's what I've felt since coming to Portugal,
a desire to know what I've never seen
but which me father spoke of.
What, exactly?
Things from his childhood,
when I was a boy in France.
Can you remember it at all?
You don't forget those things.
It's as if I'd lived in places where I've never been.
How strange!
That's atavism for you! Memories which come to life.
Like volcanic lava.
Like what is happening in Sarajevo.
Sarajevo?
Sarajevo is all over the world!
"Apocalypse Now!"
There's the School. Opposite Caminha.
See, Afonso, over there, among the houses?
It's a long way away.
The river's very wide.
Now I see it,
the building with three towers, right?
Exactly.
I was a border there, for 3 or 4 years.
We were woken at 6.
In winter, it was freezing,
our hand were frostbitten.
I was ten or eleven.
I was in the bottom class
and my brother, Casimiro, who was about a year older
was in the second class.
We only saw each other on Sundays.
We'd chat for an hour and stroll around the cloister.
It was called Colegio de La Pasaje
because it was on the road through La Guardia.
They were former Jesuits from Campolide
expelled under the Republic.
Now it's in Lisbon, it's called S. João de Brito.
It's been moved to Caldinhas.
My sons went there.
And the pretender to the throne
who got married last year.
Oddly enough, all the republican dignitaries were there.
Outside the church Royalist flags were waved.
- Your name's Duarte too! - Nothing to do with the royal family.
Will the King return?
I am born anarchist
and the Republic is 80 years old.
I was born just when the Republic was founded.
You were born under the monarchy but you're no royalist.
I don't know what I am.
Perhaps an anarchist like you.
We didn't need the monarchy to bring back the Jesuits!
Well in Spain the King is back.
Forget the monarchy. How did they treat you at school?
Discipline was strict!
I was beaten.
There was High Mass everyday.
In a religious school...
Jesuits!
And...? How were you treated. Food...
Some days we were given Spanish tortilla,
it was a speciality.
No old boy would ever forget that.
Were the teachers priests?
All of them. Except the servants.
Jesuits make good teachers.
I was a poor pupil.
I was badly behaved.
Boy did they give me cakes!
- Cakes? They gave you? - That's what we called them.
Not sweet cakes, no, these were beatings.
They were merciless.
So you don't miss the place.
My hands still burn.
And when your hands burnt,
did you think of martyrdom, like tortured saints?
You know, Judite,
it only takes a woman's glance
a certain glance to make a man a martyr.
What martyrdom is that?
Resisting desire.
Did you never think of the priesthood?
A Jesuit, like your teachers?
Or don't priests have desires?
That question is indiscreet and perverted.
What harm is there in a vocation?
It's your question which is harmful,
but I shall reply:
priesthood means celibacy
and I should only have to think of a woman,
a woman like you,
to renounce the priesthood.
Is that a compliment?
Much more than that.
So you sinned in thought!
It's been such a long time!
Have there been other such sins?
Go on, say.
Did you confess your sins?
Every day, I went to confession and took communion.
We all did, it was the rule, for all Catholics.
Did you feel better after?
If you're really interested
in my intimate thoughts
we can meet later, alone.
I'm not remotely interested!
I was only comparing,
I was educated by the nuns.
So you know what it is.
Except you're young and beautiful
I am over the hill,
I'm lame and old.
Don't exaggerate,
you must be a masochist.
I am not a masochist,
but I remember when I was an innocent child...
You seem to have regrets.
- I don't know. - Really?
No. But it's good to remember those days.
They won't come back.
Don't you know either, Judite?
I'm using the binoculars.
What for? Are you sinning?
I'm looking at the school!
In the Bible, Judite, to save Bethany,
seduced Holophernes the Assyrian
and in his sleep cut off his head.
At dawn, the Army saw his head on the walls
and raised the siege.
What's that go to do with the school?
Your loveliness and your name reminded me.
I am not here to seduce anyone.
I am not like that Judite.
In my school, there was no Army.
Here, there were priests.
They are gone for good.
But the building still stands.
It's not the same. I don't know what's become of it.
- We're so far from it. - What do you mean?
Between eras there lies a time which becomes the present.
Put like that, I feel cut off from my memories.
I'm the one who's cut off. This river is not mine.
It's not mine either.
Mine is a river of gold.
River of gold?
One's own always is
but mine is called DOURO
which means of gold.
I see!
This is the MINHO,
it's the border with Spain.
It is wider and darker than mine.
Dark! It feels placid.
It does now.
But on dark winter days,
coming home from the Christmas fair,
the river seemed frightening.
The waves round our boat were like in the sea.
A black boat took us across,
when it dipped, I was only a boy,
I thought we'd all drown.
Have mercy on us!
The boatman was a brave man, he never stopped rowing.
My childish mind saw us shipwrecked,
I'd tremble as I watched my father.
His calm was reassuring.
It was a boat like that.
The boatman must have been strong!
Not at all!
He was small and tough, thin and dry,
with a weatherbeaten face.
He just rowed on.
To me, this little man seemed like a giant.
That, Afonso, is the citadel of Valença.
We are circumventing the fortifications.
One historian dates the fortifications
back to a fortified camp
in early Roman times,
but it looks medieval.
Those days are gone.
Yes. Between eras,
there lies a time which becomes the present.
It was here, I remember.
My father said, "Chico, stop." Chico was my older brother,
the oldest.
Everyone had nicknames.
My brother Casimiro was Miro
and me, the youngest, I was Nene.
I was almost spoilt.
- It shows. - Do you think so?
It must be there somewhere.
Don't change the subject.
I'm not, don't distract me.
There was a statue by the road there,
a little man with a big moustache.
He was kneeling, carrying a tree-trunk and trellis...
Here, here he his.
He's been moved.
It's like my moustache in the film.
My father was in a lot of trouble at the time
no one would help.
This carving is a caricature on what he was going through.
Good afternoon.
Could you tell me, was this moved?
Wasn't it there, by the road?
Not that I know.
The chap is ancient, he's always been...
by the house of the man who made it.
Look what they've done!
Some kids, bad they are,
they cut Pedro Macau's arm off.
- He's called Pedro Macau? - Yes.
He's got a poem too.
Do you know it?
As it happens, I do.
"My name is Pedro Macau with a beam on my back,
"Many pass by here, some white-nosed, some black,
"But none of them sets me free."
What is it? Can you repeat it?
He's still here with his beam, the poor man.
There used to be a trellis on top
but it was too heavy.
He didn't like is condition...
If he got rid of that bolt...
the trellis would fall and kill the poor man.
What's she saying?
She says he's very old, he's always been there.
He's a foreigner!
The man who made it lived here.
There's a poem about him... It goes:...
If he moved, the trellis would fall and kill him.
- Poor man. - Yes.
That's why he says, no one sets me free.
Go on, say after me...
Slowly...
"My name is Pedro Macau...
"with a beam on my back,
"Many pass by here,
"some white-nosed,
"some black nosed,
"But none set me free."
Poor man...
he's trapped.
She's just said the poor man is trapped.
A thing like this makes a little man a hero despite himself.
Providing he's brave...
- As your father was. - Indeed.
Mine was too. I think of him like the boatman.
Small but tough.
As tough as giants.
Like Pedro Macau.
Why did they give him that name?
I don't know...
Perhaps because it rhymes.
Well, I must get on.
God be with you.
Thank you...
Let's hope he stays here.
That's right. Let's do our best.
The others are crumbling...
As you say...
Life is what it is and death never fails.
Right, let's go.
We'd drive here in an "Itala."
An Itala?
Yes, "Itala" or "Itála."
Sounds Italian.
The factory's in Turin.
It was my father's first car after 1914.
I think it was the only one in Portugal.
Never heard of it.
Our first driver's name was Maia.
Chico started young, before he had a license of course.
As did Casimiro, and me too.
Those were the days.
Indeed!
Chico was the oldest by nine years.
I was the youngest, still a child,
when he was out painting the town red with expensive girlfriends,
tarts barely older than him.
Delicious ladies of the night!
They went to all the smart theatres of Oporto,
in expensive boxes, always alone
to show off their dresses and jewels.
They knew a man's weakness.
They were so lovely, they trapped men easily.
They were good at love, secretive
and tender, both by nature and by profession.
They used old men, madly wealthy ones,
preferably already engaged
so there was more time for affairs of the head
with young lovers.
I'd join them in their boxes,
my brother would take me during the interval.
They wanted to see me close up,
they enjoyed little boys like me,
the baby brother of their lover of the moment.
What did they do to you?
Yes, what did they do to you?
What could they do to me?
Nothing. They played. They said sweet nothings.
They kissed my face like a mother,
except they weren't like a mother,
they got me all exited.
Ah, this is Pezo...
The Grand Hotel is this way.
The waters here are good for diabetics.
Not for us then!
We'd better drive in.
The Grand Hotel of Pezo! Look at it!
It's tragic!
I was sitting here with Casimiro, and a group of girls,
girls... young girls!
Two of them were sisters.
There was a bench against the tree,
we often sat there. There's the mark. Look, there!
We were young, 15 or 16.
See how time has shifted the mark. At the time it was there, roughly.
Look where it is now. Look!
There were the girls,
lovely girls,
the oldest...
my brother was in love with her,
they were in love... young love...
Young love?
Young love is not always innocent.
Innocent or not, they alone know.
But they did cry a lot
when they had to pad.
We left and she stayed with her family,
the brother was sick with typhus.
I can hear his groans, up there, on the top floor,
as he went into a cold bath against the fever,
stifled groans,
audible from the corridor there.
What it was then,
and what it is now!
No garden,
no doors or windows,
only those groans,
engraved on my head like the mark on the tree.
Poor boy!
You know,
your "saudade" is worse than Afonso's.
"Saudade"? Nostalgia, right?
Yes. When you lose your sense of irony.
But you're right, Afonso.
What are these ruins?
The future of a heady past.
Tell me, Judite?
Who would not, like the boy with typhus,
or anyone else,
look back on a time of good health,
from his sickbed, his hospital bed.
That's true.
Our time is sick...
Like at Sarajevo, without the bullets!
And what a sickness!
Is the world really so ill?
Ill? It's condemned! It's been poisoned.
No waters will cure it.
No thermal cure, no term for a cure.
Ruins to us, Manoel, not to you. You can remember.
For you, nothing has changed.
- You're wrong. - Am I?
All is lost for him of whom the poet speaks.
- Who is that? - Who?
He was a native,
the poet tells of his hut on the hill where he tilled his plot of ground.
The river flowed below.
At dusk, he went down
took a canoe
and crossed over to where his girlfriend lived.
From his boat,
by moonlight, through the branches, he saw
his girl with another man.
Sadly, he returned home
to find a landslide had, in the meantime,
taken everything he had, his hut and his land.
Thus, the poet says...
"Saudade." A well-known story by Catulo Searence,
a Brazilian poet, he's captured a typical mood.
"Saudade and the fallen land."
Excuse me... you too, Manoel.
We're wasting Afonso's time with our stories.
He's come tome to see where his ancestors came from.
We'd better get going.
No, no finish the story first.
The poet was speaking of the native sentiment.
“Saudade and the fallen land, a portion I dreamt of.“
He means that memory is a landslide in a dreaming head.
I hope it doesn't happen to me.
Didn't you say you had an aunt still living?
Yes, my father's sister. I'm dying to know her.
All this past is yours, Manoel,
it's nothing to do with me.
It's not my father's past.
- My father was called Manoel too. - What do you mean by that?
The name's the same, but the story is different.
I don't mean the moods, I mean in real things
like hunger or cold,
having nowhere to sleep.
I've never suffered that.
I've known anguish,
a strange foreboding
or a deep distress
which frightened me for no reason.
No reason at all.
Like a nightmare,
specially when I was a child or a teenager.
And still now?
I don't know.
I know my own story,
as if it belonged in another life.
Make what you can of this, I cannot say more.
But real deprivation, such as your father suffered
hunger, cold, being without a roof,
on the contrary, I was loved.
Perhaps that's why I didn't mind boarding in that school.
Then there was national service.
It was compulsory.
I was sound in body and mind,
but my character was unformed.
I was too sensitive for military discipline,
I tried to imagine warfare
and how I would behave.
I was born as the Republic was founded,
I grew up at a time of revolution and war
but I was hardly affected.
I admit fate has been kind to me.
Up till now, anyway.
My father's fate was different.
It was hard for him, really tough when he was young.
What's the village called? It's near a town...
Near Castro Laboreiro.
There's a breed of dogs called that. They are almost savage,
because the local bitches go with mountain wolves.
The village is called Lugar do Teso.
He was not 14 when he left.
- So young! - Yes, he told me...
It was a cold morning,
I climbed the Falperra Mountains
alone so no one would try and stop me.
I set out just like that,
with no money,
and only the clothes on my back.
In one hand, I had a wire with bits of metal
to scare the wolves
in the other, a stick
with a bag of brad on the end.
A stick on his shoulder, like Pedro Macau?
Like Pedro Macau.
He used to say, "Son, I've seen it all."
I know the story so well, it's like it is my own.
He often mentioned his sister,
my aunt Maria Afonso.
- I'm going to meet her. - You will,
but tell us what you know about your father.
How did he manage, without papers?
He was in the Spanish War, he was arrested
first by Franco's side, then by the Republicans.
I prison, he learnt mechanics.
He bought his release
with money from a cow his family sold to help him.
So they had no more milk?
They were poor people.
Where did he go then?
He crossed the Pyrenees, to France.
- Illegally? - Yes.
That must have been hard.
It was very hard at first.
Then he found work in a garage
and learnt to speak, read and write in French.
He got his papers after the Armistice, in 1940.
Did he have trouble in the war?
He was Portuguese, so he was neutral.
After the war, he set up his own business.
He lived in Toulouse,
he married my mother, who was French.
My brother Yves remembers his guitar,
he sang fado,
he died young.
- Who? Yves? - No. My father.
He died at 40, in a car crash.
He'd left my mother.
And you never came to Portugal?
Us, no.
He came once, to find men for his garage.
But he was a tough boss, they didn't stay.
A hard life makes one tough.
Hey! Hello!
Excuse me, where is...
Lugar do Teso?
That way.
It's easy to find.
Take the first road on the left,
then straight ahead.
Thank you.
Were they on holiday?
One of them spoke French?
He seemed like an emigrant.
In these villages, Afonso,
there is always food and drink on the table.
If you don't have some, it causes of fence.
I thought I ought to mention it.
We knocked at your door,
they said to call here, so here we are.
This gentleman is your nephew Afonso, Manoel's son,
your brother Manoel's son.
Your nephew's an actor, he's working here.
He is anxious to meet you and know his father's home.
You say he's my nephew...
but can't speak?
He's born French, his mother's French,
he only knows French.
I'm French too! I'm married to your cousin.
I can translate, my name is Christine.
Why are you in black?
One of the family has died,
but women here wear black when their husbands work abroad.
My father's Manoel, your mother-in-law's brother.
I've always lived in France.
He says he's your brother's son.
My father was Manoel.
My friends have accompanied me to meet my aunt.
He asked his friends to bring him to meet you, Maria.
Why can't he speak our speech?
Because he's lived in France.
I married Joaquim in France,
we used to come for Christmas, Last time, he asked me to stay
for the children and because life is cheaper here.
Why doesn't he speak our speech?
Because he doesn't know how to!
He's not been to Portugal before.
He was born in France.
But your brother talked about you a lot, he wanted to meet you.
His father, my brother,
was always very headstrong.
At fourteen, he left us,
no one could stop him.
He crossed the frontier,
next we knew was a card from Spain asking for money
because the Republicans had caught him.
This was during the Spanish War.
He only thought of us when he needed money.
Money! We had none!
Don't worry, we're not wanting money.
The last time we had to sell the cow, for my brother's problem.
He came once, many years later.
I didn't recognize him...
He was a tough man, toughened by the trouble he'd had.
He wanted to see everything,
and he took men with him.
But he was a determined man,
they didn't get on with him, they soon come back.
Why are we talking? He doesn't understand!
Why doesn't he speak our speech?
Because your brother never taught him.
She is desperate, you can't understand her.
She's telling us things you know already,
about your father living and the cow.
He only came back once, so changed
she didn't recognize him.
He took some men with him,
but they returned saying he was too tough.
Your aunt doesn't see why you don't speak her language,
she's suspicious.
These people brought him,
he's your brother-in-laws son,
the one who died in France.
My brother Manoel's son.
Any woman would do for him.
And women were unfaithful to him.
Who knows whose son he is! He doesn't speak our speech!
This gentleman is your aunt's husband,
your father had many women,
she isn't convinced you're her nephew,
because your father had women who cheated him.
That's irrelevant.
When we were born, my mother had only him.
Only later he had other women.
Yves and I are brothers,
we are your brother Manoel's sons.
We are your nephews.
Afonso says that he and Yves, when they were born,
Manoel had no other women, he knows he is your nephew.
But what does this man want?
Is it the fields? The inheritance?
Who is this man, who does not speak like us?
They seem to have just inherited some land,
they think you're claiming your share.
I want nothing! I've not come to claim anything!
I've come to see my aunt,
to hear about my father,
to see where my family is from,
that's all.
He says it's not the fields, he's not interested.
He only wants to see where he is from.
But why doesn't he speak our speech?
Your aunt says you can't speak...
Even if I could, I'd only say I'm Afonso,
your brother Manoel's son. I'm your nephew.
He says never mind he can't speak Portuguese,
he knows he's your nephew, your brother's son.
I know what my father was like with women,
but I'm your nephew, your nephew Afonso.
He says he knows about the girlfriends,
and his mother's problems with your brother
but he knows he is your nephew.
And why doesn't he speak our speech?
In France, our language is not useful,
his father never taught him.
She's still complaining you can't speak.
Your nephew's an important actor, he's on television.
Television? Aunty doesn't like television.
He earns a lot of money. He needs nothing here.
He wants to know her and his father's home.
He looks like my brother,
brown eyes like his.
Mine are green.
But why doesn't he speak our speech?
She's insistent about the language.
Language!
Who cares about that!
Look!
Look my arm.
Tell her to grasp my arm.
He wants you to grasp his arm.
Language doesn't count.
What count is blood.
The blood in my arm
is the same as in your veins.
He says blood matters more than speech,
the blood in him is the same as in your veins.
My brother Manoel's son!
Tell her I want to see the family graves.
He wants to see the family graves.
I have to stop at home, I'm not dressed for the graveyard.
He must see where his father was born.
It's as it should be, no?
We are like new-born babies, with an umbilical cord.
We are.
My parents have passed on, my husband's in France
and I'm here with the children, which is my duty.
But I long for home and my husband.
- When will he came? - Not till Christmas.
Why did you not stay with him in France?
It's too expensive.
We save money here, my mother-in-law helps me.
Children are exhausting.
Come on children...
I must stay here.
See you later.
Life was tough here,
Manoel, my brother-in-law,
had eyes only for the mountains
beyond which was who knows what...
Illusions...
So we thought, anyway.
He'd say...
I have to know what is the other side,
he said that and left.
Well what there was
beyond the mountains was war
between Franco and the Republic.
Look... there...
those are the mountains...
those mountains.
Life here was always tough.
Hard work and deprivation.
My brother-in-law, his father,
he didn't want that.
His idea was to escape.
People thought this was a boy's fantasy.
But he found his way.
I see all the letter-boxes have the same name, Afonso!
Yes.
And why is that?
We descend from Don Afonso Henriques,
the first King who saw Christ with his five wounds
at the battle of Ourique.
Well you certainly know your stuff!
Don't we all need to know that Afonso founded Portugal?
And Vieira says in a sermon,
"Portugal alone was born by God's will."
I've heard of Father Vieira.
But my dear sir, if we'd had our way
the Lord would have made this village luckier.
Here, at Alto do Teso,
we recite some verses by Camões, about Afonso,
which goes like this:
"The high promontories..."
Don't worry...!
"The high promontories weep for him,
"that always in his kingdom was called
"Afonso! But in vain..."
- We're waiting! - All right!
José!
Give him some bread.
In France, are things not well?
She wants to know how things are in France.
Fine, aunty, fine.
We only ever hear of other people's wars,
and we worry about what could happen to you.
Have this bread and...
God be with you.
The bread is for you.
She says they hear of wars and worry about what could happen.
She hopes the bread will bring you peace.
Thank her for bread and her good wishes.
Your nephew thanks you for your wishes and your gift.
God bless you!
Let him guard you against wars in the East,
in Croatia or wherever...
And in Africa. Africa too.
Wars never end.
She blesses you
and says she ears about endless wars in Africa and Croatia,
she's worried about you.
I think she's starting to accept you.
My brother Manoel's son!
Your nephew wants you to tell him about his father,
your brother,
whatever you remember.
My brother Manoel?
He was strong in body and strong in mind,
a hard worker and straight.
But all he wanted was to leave.
She says your father was straight, strong in body and mind,
a worker, he only wanted to leave to find a better life.
Life here is hard,
a life for poor people,
tiring, cold in winter,
sometimes we go hungry.
She says life is hard here,
it's cold in winter, they go hungry.
That's all he thought about, "I have to leave."
He left.
He left alone, without a word,
he was just a child.
Your aunt says he was brave,
no one could stop him wanting to leave.
Afterwards we heard, someone who saw him
disappearing, one cold morning,
across the mountain.
He had a bag in the end of a stick.
We heard nothing more.
Long after a letter come from Spain asking for money to buy is way out.
They only heard from him later, from Spain,
asking for money to get out of jail.
I know all that my father told me.
I want to know about him here.
He wants to know about here.
About who? Us?
Yes, and your brother.
What can I say?
Your father was brave
and however much we warned him off,
no one could get him to stay,
he was determined to get out...
And now there's you who speaks another speech.
If your father didn't teach you to speak like us
he was a bad father.
What can I say... tell you...?
You know the life he gave you in France,
no one remember us in this pan of the world,
who cares about us? Who cares?
We only know what people say.
- Such as? - Old stuff!
And stuff for now!
Things you don't forget.
- You don't forget? - That we don't forget.
We're in this lost corner of the world,
who cares about us?
Listen, during the Great War of 1914
then people remembered all about us.
They came for our boys
to fight with the French against the Germans,
they didn't come back. - They stayed in France?
They died. At war.
There was a soldier from Vila Real or Murça,
one of the few who came back alive.
He died not long ago, in his village.
He was up a tree with a machine-gun, hidden,
shooting at the Germans. - I remember him well.
He was at the Battle of the Marne, 9th April.
He saved thousands of French soldiers, Allies,
who remembers that?
Then much time passed
and your father was in France, another war came
against the Germans again.
Then Salazar sent for us, but he never gave the order.
We never entered that war, no.
He didn't want it.
But they came back for the boys, for the colonies,
so many emigrated abroad.
The African war didn't end till 25th April,
in the villages only old people remained.
She's talking about the war and you father in France.
She says they're forgotten
except when they need people to die in their wars.
She also spoke of a Portuguese hero
who climbed a tree in 1914 with a machine-gun and bullets
to keep the Germans at bay
as the French and Allied troops desperately retreated.
She says Salazar refused to enter the last war
but he took boys to fight the colonial wars,
the only way out was to emigrate.
The African wars ended with 25th April...
so now there are only old people left.
Listen,
when we're gone, who'll farm this land?
We can hardly manage now, I'm all right... but my husband...!
I can't any more, my legs weigh too much.
What saves us is the pension.
Without the pension, we wouldn't last two weeks.
We'd die of hunger.
I'll tell you this,
when we're gone, this land will go.
Young people don't want this.
They want to be in the cities.
This here is ending.
It's back to the dawn of time.
That's it!
In France, it's all with machines.
Our land is no good for that.
Before we had the smuggling which was a help
but now with this EEC thing
even that's gone. All we've got is my husband's pension.
Your nephew doesn't know about farming.
He's a famous actor, his picture's in magazines.
You've seen him on TV.
I don't watch that thing!
At my daughter's-in-law's it's put to work, but...
You don't like it.
Like what? It's shameless.
Impudent women
showing themselves naked before men!
And worse! I couldn't say it in words,
things to darken the heavens.
TV shows other things too.
Sure, they kill each other like rabbits,
there's no respect,
it's whites with whites, black with whites,
blacks with blacks...
- But television... - It's the devil's work!
This is of no interest to you.
She doesn't like TV. She says it's the devil's work!
Ask if we can go to the cemetery?
He wants to see the family graves.
Afonso! We have to get to the shot!
We must go now.
Now I'll never see you again.
I'll be back.
And Yves?
I'd like to know my brother's other son.
He's in France.
She wants you to come back with your brother.
I'll bring him, I'll bring you Yves.
He says he'll bring you Yves.
Don't forget.
Come back with him.
Don't be too long,
I want to meet my brother's other son before I die.
She wants you to come back soon with your brother
so she can meet him before she dies.
I'll be back,
I'll be back with Yves, I promise.
I've never knelt before.
People are happy to crawl nowadays.
Here stay your childhood memories.
Manoel's,
because Afonso's are way further back.
Manoel's.
And yours, Afonso? What do you make of them?
It's been a strange trip to an imaginary place,
one my father described me so often.
It's been like time-travel.
You've embraced your aunt, body and soul.
Me, even my childhood friends,
my brother Casimiro and all my friends of that time,
they are all gone.
A long life is a gift from God
but it has its price.
Well, well...
Our director wants a free ride.
How much time do you need?
- Fifteen minutes. - Everyone's waiting. Hurry up!
You look stranger like this.
Look! It's better this way.
I am Pedro Macau
With a beam on my back.
People pass by
Some with white noses
Some with black noses
And no one will set me free.
No one tells stories like that.
Not even you, Afonso,
you're not quite the same.
You've changed.
Finish your speechifying. They're waiting.
Let's go then.
Bring your friend along.
You're another Pedro Macau, Manoel.
No one sets you free.
The story of Afonso is based on the life of Yves Afonso
who, in 1987, worked on a French co-production shot in Portugal.
Translation PIERRE HODGSON
Subtitles PAULO MONTES
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