Original subtitles

Visit or Memories and Confessions

The Minister for Culture, Dr Lucas Pires,

and Instituto Português de Cinema

granted me a subsidy in 1981 for this film,

which is called "Visit, or Memories and Confessions".

The dialogues for "Visit" are by the writer Agustina Bessa–Luís,

who generously dedicated them to my wife, Maria Isabel,

and myself, Manoel de Oliveira.

The production is by Cineastas Associados,

a cooperative I belong to.

It's a film by Manoel de Oliveira about Manoel de Oliveira,

on the subject of a house.

It's my film about myself.

Maybe I shouldn't make a film like this, but it's done.

The director of production was Manuel Guanilho,

and the director of photography was Elso Roque.

The soundtrack contains passages from Piano Concerto no. 4 by Beethoven.

The sound is by Joaquim Pinto and Vasco Pimentel.

The voices are by Teresa Madruga and Diogo Dória.

The sound was mixed by Jean–Paul Loublier.

Júlia Buisel was continuity girl, and Ana Luísa helped me with editing.

The production assistant was José Manuel,

and the decor was by Maria Isabel and Manuel Casimiro.

Alexandre Santos, Emílio Castro and Mário de Oliveira

were the cameramen.

I dedicate this film to Maria Isabel, my wife.

– Are you sure it's this house?

– I've only been here at night, but I remember the trees.

And the upstairs window with the light.

– The trees are there.

But there's no way to tell which window at this time of day.

Look at that tree.

Look at the blue it stands out against.

The breathing of the leaves and the veins the sap flows in.

And the unfathomable mystery it grows in, between heaven and earth.

All of a sudden, by an effort of will,

I understand how unique its nature is.

Maybe I can speak to it and get a reply.

– We came to say thanks for a dinner...

...and for a little conversation with a lovely couple.

– A man and a woman,

well dressed, good natured.

They weren't just a trick of my imagination,

they were realer than this tree that I understand,

that I know swaps signals with the stars and the rest of the world.

That mass of leaves, as big as a wave of glass, is a magnolia.

It has a single flower, up there.

You see it?

It flowers twice.

First a rapid blossoming, covered in flowers.

Then, this rare star of maturity.

And what about this silver pine that looks like a Javanese dancing girl?

– The palm tree is the gatekeeper.

It looks surly and indifferent,

like all gatekeepers do.

I've knocked twice and nobody comes.

– There's nobody here, there never was.

It was all in our minds.

– The door's open.

No, don't go in.

– The door opened on its own, it wasn't open before.

It's what remains of the heartwood in the consciousness of the tree...

... that made it open.

– You're mad. Quite mad.

We better leave and phone later.

– No.

I entered the world of connections that lie below words.

We are surrounded by creatures that move on the threshold of language,

but do not reach us.

– This living room... I don't remember being here.

If I'd been here I'd remember this row of windows.

It's like a train, motionless on the steppe.

– What train? – The trans–Siberian, of course.

I swear it's like the trans–Siberian.

– The trans–Siberian's finished.

At sea, all the storms and tribulations,

when death seems ready to take our life.

On land, all the treachery and strife,

all the misery and deprivation.

– Moral of the story: steer clear of both land and sea.

– I once read something that went:

"Every year, a man should take refuge in smaller and smaller cells,

until he can slip through the smallest cell of all, like a thread of silver."

– A thread to make filigree with.

– Without change to keep it fresh, the soul grows blind to sky and earth.

We can change seats, at least. Or newspapers, now and again.

These stairs have a landing very close to the first floor.

What does it mean?

– That rest is not a pressing matter.

– Is nobody home?

We're friends.

The house is empty and to a certain point I don't trust it.

A house is a thing that allows me to see eye to eye with another person,

... and nothing more.

– I'm scared.

I'm not staying around here.

– The house, itself, as an object, doesn't help to keep you alive.

Every window is an eye which rests on the face of eternity,

... but a vacant eye.

– I don't like this.

Let's go out and call again.

– You say that, woman, because you're led by your feelings.

Your feelings go with you, but they're not a vital factor.

This must be the master bedroom.

– But seriously, let's go.

Look how many portraits!

I don't recognize anyone.

Do you see anyone you know?

– No.

But portraits are never real.

People should have their portraits taken like flowers do, after a storm.

That's when they're most beautiful, after they've suffered.

– These might be our friends, at a different age.

– Age fills us out from the centre of our lives.

We carry every age inside us:

at six, when we say goodbye to the kingdom of our infancy;

at twenty, when we're gods;

at forty, when we've learned or we haven't to wait for divinity.

Waiting for divinity is one of the four realms of the places we inhabit.

We live everywhere,

but we only live where the four realms of the human edifice meet.

– Four realms... What are they?

– Saving the world,

accepting heaven,

awaiting the divine,

guiding men.

Without them a house is not a home.

– So that's why there's a housing crisis!

– Precisely, my dear lady.

– Did you hear that?

There's someone downstairs...

I am Manoel de Oliveira,

a director of cinematographic films.

My full name is Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira.

It's usually sitting here at this table...

... that I write the treatments for my films.

Cinema is my passion...

and I've always sacrificed everything so I could make my films.

Nonetheless,

other pursuits...

... have shared my attentions.

Especially agriculture,

and I've also always liked things to do with architecture.

This is the house where I've lived since 1942,

after marrying my wife, Maria Isabel.

The architect who designed the house was called José Porto.

He was a follower of the leading French architects...

... and studied in Paris.

The house has a certain mystique...

... and is very representative...

... of a certain kind of 1930s architecture.

I've made various attempts to get the municipal council of Porto...

... to buy it and preserve it,

putting it to some suitable use.

We thought about a small museum of numismatics...

... among other things.

I've waited for a solution since 1975,

but no favourable decision has ever been reached.

It's now been sold to a private buyer.

I couldn't wait any longer.

The house was pledged as security, at risk of going up for auction.

I was forced to sell it to pay off debts.

Before that, Doctor Rui Luís Gomes,

then–rector of the University of Porto,

made a number of overtures with a view to integrating my house...

... in the cultural orbit of the University of Porto.

But it came to nothing.

It's no longer mine,

it has another owner...

... to get used to.

My spirit has lived in this house for nearly forty years.

It helped design it,

build it, furnish it.

Now it's rather decrepit,

it's yellowed and wrinkled like the autumn leaves.

It's known joy and sadness,

it's seen two generations born and grown:

my children's, and my grandchildren's.

I'm going to show you some memories from those times.

So, this is the house where I lived in my prime.

It was the strongest, realest phase of my life,

spent with my wife and my children.

In this house I made the longest journey of my life:

40 years.

There were two prolonged illnesses:

those of my wife's aunt and uncle (her godparents),

Cacilda Carvalhais and José Manuel Cardoso.

There was one death: José Manuel Cardoso.

It was they who raised Maria Isabel after her mother died,

when Maria Isabel was two months old.

There was one wedding,

a simple but very happy celebration:

the wedding of my daughter, Adelaide Maria.

And there have been family celebrations and much joy,

side by side with sadder moments, times of grief...

... and enormous difficulty.

– Did you hear it now? There's someone downstairs...

– There's no–one downstairs now.

It's the noises of the house, or from outside.

This is the bedroom.

It was built so the things of the present would appear in it.

– Don't say those things. I get nervous.

The present things are the trees that surround us.

They even look threatening, like they're walking on their own feet.

– The tree of birth, which is the cradle,

the tree of death, which is the coffin.

These are the present things.

They should appear in the shape of a marital bedroom.

– What's this pillar doing here?

– It's not a pillar, it's a mast.

The technical side of architecture is all about making this or that appear...

... in the midst of present things.

It's the mast of a ship.

It relates a man to his intimate being, his horizon.

Look. This house is a ship.

Verandas and terraces are bridges and decks.

The white cabins open onto the gangway.

And the sea symbolized by the candelabra–pine down there.

And the bay of lawn where you can float in the May sunshine.

In the hall – if you noticed – the collection of cowries and conches,

like trophies from enormous voyages,

... and an angel sleeping down there, gnawed by the salt water.

Our gatekeeper has grown to a height.

His long hair beats on the window pane like a bunch of keys...

... and tells us:

"It's time. It's time."

– It's time for what?

– For the gatekeeper it's always time... to go.

To close the doors.

Even St Peter dreams of closing the gates of heaven,

and switching off the light.

– You don't see anything in a simple way.

– I do. Everything.

You remember that house on the road to Guarda,

built up against a rock?

– How am I supposed to remember what's at the side of a horrible road!

– Man's relationship with place was never so well observed.

Two blind walls that resist the harshest winds.

The windows that fit the gaze, where the muzzle of a rifle can rest.

It's the half–open door, plain and sombre...

... waiting for the visit of a god. – Waiting for nothing.

People so poor neither hope nor fear.

Who does that leave?

Just a gipsy woman with a black dog and her child on her flank.

The things you think of!

– This house just became complete, when you said "you".

The house revealed itself in that word.

– It's nice to think about.

I don't know if it's nice to say what you're saying.

At least we're alone here, otherwise it must look strange.

And society is less and less tolerant of strangers.

The garden looks strange too, seen from up here.

We should look at trees in a different way.

– From below, like Newton.

Or as if we were seeing what they're for or what they produce.

– It isn't that.

Or maybe it is.

What a conversation to be having at six in the evening in an empty house!

– It isn't empty at all. – You mean the furniture and things?

– I mean everything that fills this place.

Where are you going? – I was going downstairs.

But I'm afraid. I saw a dog in the garden.

– I didn't see any dog. – It was running, almost crawling.

It looked like one of those dogs that are trained to attack.

They let people in then don't let them out again.

– Don't be afraid. And there's no dog.

It's your imagination.

– I could do with some tea.

Green tea, like my grandfather drank.

The leaves opened slowly,

like parchments with a testament written on them.

– Your grandfather's testament would fit on a tealeaf.

– Oh funny!

He wasn't rich, but he was refined,

educated and so on.

What if I served the tea?

Maybe the dog will go away in the meantime.

– Imagine if the owners came in and found us here,

in the nether regions of the house,

out of the flow of events, like thieves or preachers.

– I'm scared again.

I'd forgotten how we'd got the wrong house.

The fact is, I don't recognize it.

– This settee wasn't here.

– There's nothing changes places more than a settee.

Especially when it's a wooden settee.

I don't know why they don't hold séances with settees,

instead of pedestal tables.

– That's it! Now I'm afraid in a different way.

Did you hear the door? – What about the door?

– It slammed. No, it opened.

– It wasn't the front door.

This, as I said, is the house I lived in for forty years...

... and which I'm now obliged to leave.

I'm 73 years old,

this isn't the house I was born in.

The house I was born in...

... my father had it built in 1904.

I was born in 1908.

Here's a little film I made to show you.

My father and my mother with their first child,

my brother Francisco.

It was around this time...

... that my father built the house I would be born in.

He bought a piece of land on quite high ground...

... that was known as the Ant Hill.

At that time, my father had the idea of setting up

a haberdashery factory beside the house.

He found a partner to manage the technical side of things.

This man's name was Fortuna,

and he soon revealed a hot–headed and impulsive character.

When things went badly for him when he was adjusting the machinery,

he'd strike them desperately with a hammer or another tool.

That was when they agreed, given the temperament of Fortuna,

on conditions for one of them to exit the company, the other remaining.

So they put the matter to a vote among the employees,

who decided in favour of my father.

And so the firm changed name from Fortuna to Oliveira,

or more precisely, Francisco José de Oliveira...

... and at a later point Francisco José de Oliveira & Sons.

I spent my childhood in the company of my brothers,

especially my brother Casimiro,

who was nearly the same age as me.

So my childhood was spent in the environment of the factory,

amid much affection from family and workforce,

who were nearly all women.

The supervisors and the office people were very republican.

Vaz, Mandim and Reinaldo...

... were the most fervent, shall we say.

The manager of the dye shop, Carvalho, was illiterate...

... but a man of great integrity.

As he got older, he began to lose his memory...

... and started mixing up the dyes...

... whose recipes he knew by heart.

He was a carbonário.

When he died, they were taking his coffin from his home to the church...

... and when it came the turn...

... of his fellow republicans to carry the coffin...

... they turned the coffin around...

... as a protest against his family,

which wanted, against the dead man's will, to take him to the church.

Then they placed the coffin on the ground and abandoned the cortège...

...which continued on its way, the way the family wanted.

My brothers and I,

who followed the cortège to the cemetery,

did not interfere.

I loved my father...

...and had great admiration for him.

He was good–natured and understanding,

a man with a eye for the future.

He was a pioneer in his time.

He started new industries in the country and he did it in exemplary fashion.

He came through many difficulties and suffered enormous setbacks,

but every one of his ventures he saw through to completion.

Here, on a site beside the land owned by my grandfather,

was my father's last great venture,

the last of his life:

the hydroelectric plant on the waterfall of Ermal,

which today is CHENOP.

This is the house where my father was born, built by my grandfather.

Here's a family photograph showing my grandparents,

my father and some of his thirteen siblings.

Only the oldest son remained in the paternal home,

together with the youngest, who owing to meningitis as a child,

was left mentally retarded.

All the others sought their fortunes away from home

and all led successful lives, some more than others.

My grandfather.

My grandmother.

My grandmother died suddenly,

at an advanced age,

while getting all her children seated around the table for supper,

on what was her very last Christmas Eve.

– Let's go. Where did I leave my bag?

– I'm going to count the doors.

If there's an even number, we stay till someone appears,

even if it's just the electricity man.

– Let's go. Where did I leave my bag?

It's evening all of a sudden.

Dusk is gathering outside.

It's an unreal time of day, nightfall.

We're neither alive nor dead.

– It's the time when we say goodbye, when we have regrets,

or even forget the spirit of revenge.

A great nostalgia takes hold of us.

It should be beautiful but it isn't.

– Isn't it beautiful to forget the spirit of revenge?

– No.

Beautiful would be getting rid of it,

of the spirit of persecution, of false elevation.

– There isn't a speck of dust in this room.

– No.

We can't write our names in the dust.

That makes our visit a bit of a failure.

– We're getting melancholic.

We're getting donnish and over–earnest,

which doesn't suit me, or you either.

Did you hear a car? – No I didn't.

– I'm going to get my bag. I must have left it upstairs.

These are the photos of my clan.

We'll begin at the weddings.

This is mine with Maria Isabel.

My oldest son's, Manuel Casimiro,

with his wife Sheena.

They separated later.

This is their son, David.

Now it's the turn of my son José Manuel,

at his wedding with Maria João.

And here are their children,

Pedro...

... and Francisco.

This is my older daughter (we'll go in order of age),

Isabel Maria.

And my younger daughter,

Maria Adelaide,

who's married to Jorge.

And their children,

Ricardo...

... and Susana.

I was married on 4 December 1940.

– What do you think of cinema?

– I think cinema is marvellous, it gets me out of my everyday routine.

As well as painting, which I did before I married and now my flowers.

– Isabel, what does it mean to you to be married for forty years...

...with a cinema director?

– For the first 25 years...

...I tried to help him with everything,

even doing the sound and continuity in one of his films.

The last years have been a struggle,

as I've been overwhelmed with the material and family problems...

... while Manoel dedicated himself entirely to the cinema.

– How is your family life...

... with a man like Manoel de Oliveira?

– A life of abnegation and comprehension,

because you can't separate the artist from the man...

... without the person being completely nullified in their personality.

I love life, but death doesn't scare me.

What scares me is physical suffering,

which seems far more unjust than death.

And yet I think

that suffering, and the idea of death,

make us appreciate life more,

even in its most particular aspects.

For me, death is not an abstract thing.

I've seen people die since I was very young,

and I've been in places where relatives were dying.

I was with my father when he died.

Yet death always leaves me feeling that it's only a physical thing.

I've felt the presence of the spirit so clearly...

... that my anguish at the death of a loved one was minimized.

I love life...

... and I think love, and only love,

can give it its ultimate meaning.

Its fullness and purity.

That word, purity,

is full of meaning for me,

for it embodies aspects...

... that seem to me to be truly transcendent,

like the idea of God.

Or...

... to put it in a non–religious way,

of the Absolute.

Purity is not a degree of sanctity,

although it can be, insofar as it reins in the instincts,

the most primary impulses,

and masters and restrains them.

But it's not a degree of sanctity.

It can't be innocence either,

but rather a state of grace...

... that leads us to or brings us nearer to that Absolute,

a kind of metaphysical salvation a cleansing through the spirit,

in the unbidden repudiation of worldly and bodily temptation.

What I'm trying to say is, only this state of grace,

this purity, I mean, can save Man.

But it would take the Child of purity to come to the world and wash it clean,

and transmit his purity to men.

Woman is the symbol of virtues:

she is goodness,

love,

mother,

sister, wife.

But she's also the symbol of temptation, of sin, perdition.

From woman comes the equilibrium of the world.

In her apparent passivity,

she has the power...

... to destroy or redeem the destiny of men.

Perversity in women makes men more quarrelsome.

Virtue, on the contrary, pacifies them.

The actresses in my films

are women who exert an enormous fascination over me.

Their characters are transfigured in the reality of the actress:

woman incarnate, mythical woman of fiction.

Maria Isabel, my wife,

is reality without subterfuge.

I found in her a companion who was dedicated,

understanding and tolerant.

Her strong character helped me in all my difficult moments.

The woman who gave me the best years of my life...

... and my four children.

Some people have talked,

on the subject of my tetralogy of thwarted loves,

accusing me of being seduced...

... by virginity.

It's true.

Virginity, more than chastity, exerts a great fascination over me.

It's the enchantment of youthfulness.

The unblemished sprit, the immaculate newness of the body.

It's enchantment with tender years while still pure,

of life and potential yet to blossom,

everything without sin or vice.

But virginity is valued in the young,

when it's spontaneous and pure.

I wouldn't say the same...

... when the spirit grows tainted with age

and the flesh becomes corrupted,

and virginity remains.

Unless...

Sanctity is the outcome of an attitude.

The most dignified attitude man can take.

Without any plausible guarantee of another life,

this attitude renounces life's pleasures in goodness to one's neighbour...

... and the improvement of oneself,

with the risk of losing everything.

– It's better not to think about that,

because we'll lose the ability to contemplate.

A house is something from which life grows and at the same time an obstacle,

because it's a medium we have to eliminate.

It stops people from coming together,

because it's conceived as a pleasure,

a refuge, a shared experience.

The relationship has to be direct,

with nothing floating or in between, without values that get in the way.

I'm talking of Man, the house he lives in...

and the pledge that binds them together and which must be forgotten.

We need a point of departure,

something else,

the whole world.

The house is us.

The body unfixed like the ark of the Flood,

that bobs on the waves till the dove returns with an olive branch in its beak.

– We are not the house.

The house is the world. Our world.

– It's like we're rocking gently.

When it rains, the illusion that we're at sea is perfect.

I'm sure of it.

The house really is moving.

That ashtray just slid a little there.

It's raised anchor,

the harbour lights are receding.

– I heard you from upstairs. I thought someone had arrived.

– Making myself heard upstairs is no small talent.

Let's go.

Here I'm projecting a short film...

... I made of Portelinha, a house in Veiga.

It's a very old property,

which Maria Isabel inherited from her grandparents...

... and dates from the time of her great–grandparents.

I've stayed here on several occasions.

The maternal grandfather...

... and grandmother of Maria Isabel.

Her brother Abel as a child,

Maria Isabel as a child,

her mother as a young woman and her brother António Amadeu.

Maria Isabel as a child again.

Maria Isabel's father, and her mother.

Her aunt and uncle and godparents, José Manuel and Cacilda, who raised her.

Her father again in his judge's robes.

We're inside the house of Portelinha,

where I wrote "A Caça"...

... and a few other films I didn't make, like "Angélica".

I wrote in this corner of the dining room that also served as a lounge,

and other times on the veranda.

I was visited here by many people from the world of cinema.

They were, firstly,

José Novais Teixeira...

... and his friend André Bazin.

Later, José Vieira Marques,

accompanied by Jean D'Yvoire.

Then, on two occasions, my old friend the director Paulo Rocha,

on one occasion accompanied by an English director...

... whose name I think was Douglas.

He was making a film on pollution

and was surprised how pure the air was, with the vivid, limpid blue of the sky.

Paulo Rocha is the Portuguese director I rate most highly,

for his refinement and delicacy of feeling.

Friends visited too: like Ernesto de Oliveira,

Father João Marques,

and the great poet and writer José Régio.

And a group of cinema people...

... like Erica and Ulrich Gregor,

Jean Pierre Brossard,

Francisco Linás,

Jean D'Yvoire,

Jann Lardeau,

Henri Pialat, director of CIDALC,

Gábor Takács,

and many others.

I spent my holidays here.

Times of harvest and devotion to agriculture,

which I also loved.

Agriculture ties us profoundly to the earth, to men,

and gives us the perception of God.

I'm a man of many doubts and much faith.

My parents were Catholics, from Catholic families,

and I, naturally, had a Catholic upbringing.

We had priests and nuns in the family.

I attended a Jesuit college in La Guardia,

"La Passage", in Spain.

Before that I went to the Colégio Universal in Porto.

When the river was in spate, it used to flood Veiga...

... and when the water receded it left these quagmires...

where malaria festered.

In 1646, the local people decided to make a cutting in the land...

... to join the different strands of the river,

diverting it away from Veiga and using it for irrigation.

The result was this waterfall of 18 metres,

now known as "The Cut".

In 1963, during the fascist regime,

I was arrested by the secret police.

I never learned the real reason.

I presumed it was because of a conference...

... in the journalists' guild of Porto,

where I gave a talk about the premiere of my film,

"Acto da Primavera",

in the Trindade cinema,

and said things that didn't please the regime.

Later, I was ill, in bed, with a bad case of bronchitis.

Two spooks from PIDE burst into my room,

a little dizzy...

... from the maze–like layout of my house.

One of them...

... told me abruptly: "You have to come with us."

– "But I'm ill!"

"Never mind that, you have to come."

– "I'm not leaving. I'm ill."

The PIDE doctor came, my doctor came,

and they ended up forcing me...

... to get dressed and go with them.

On the way we came here to the office.

They turned everything over,

looked at the books...

... from one end to another, looked at the desk,

opened the safe,

and found nothing.

Then they told me to sign a paper saying...

... they hadn't violated or broken anything.

I thought:

"Great, I sign this paper...

... and once they've got it they'll break everything."

But that's not what happened.

I had no alternative,

I had to sign the paper.

But fortunately, as I said, nothing happened.

All they did was take me to their Renault, the "Bedpan",

which took me to the offices of PIDE in Porto.

I was there for a few hours,

then they took me to Lisbon.

Before I left for Lisbon they let my wife visit me.

She came to me without crying...

... and gave me a small tin of biscuits in front of the spooks...

... and the visit was over.

Then I went in the 15 HP "Bedpan" to Lisbon.

There were three strong, well–built men, dressed in dark clothes.

One at the wheel,

one beside him, always looking back, maybe to see if we were being followed,

and the other in the back, next to me.

At the PIDE offices in Lisbon, they took my papers and my wallet,

my tie, my belt and the laces from my shoes.

They told me to undress and get dressed again and stuck me in the cells.

The following day, they questioned me.

Then, they had me taken down to the front desk.

At this point I noticed another detainee in the next room, waiting like I was.

I learned, later,

it was the writer Urbano Tavares Rodrigues.

They took us to Aljube,

penned in like animals and separated by a grille.

When I saw Urbano doing up his shoes,

I found it strange and wondered:

"They didn't take this guy's shoelaces. Why not?"

They kept me in a cell, in a row of very narrow cells,

with a door at each end.

Inside there was nothing except an extremely narrow cot.

I spent about ten days there in a terrible monotony.

I felt an awful tedium.

I could hear the clock of the cathedral marking hours, half hours, quarter hours,

all day and all night. That increased the tedium.

I didn't eat any of the meals they brought me.

I didn't even look at the food.

During all this time I fed myself...

... on the rest of the biscuits they'd let me bring.

One or two biscuits a day.

I drank water from an aluminium mug.

The interrogations were intrusive, impertinent and aggressive,

worse still when they used humiliation, making me take my clothes off.

The last time, I was interrogated by a fellow named Sacchetti.

He put me in the middle of a room and began to circle around me

and for a long time stood behind me in silence.

And I didn't move.

Time seemed to have stopped, but I kept still and thought:

"How low can a man stoop."

Here's the house where I was born. It belongs to my sister–in–law now.

It's in ruins.

It's going to be demolished.

I got the factory part.

The factory built by my father.

Although my vocation is cinema, I felt obliged to keep it going.

But the factory was falling apart and everything needed renovating.

So I put up all my possessions as security on a loan.

Then 25 April came,

it was a time of revolutionary action and great agitation and euphoria.

But great confusion too.

That was when the workers occupied the factory.

They sent me a telegram:

"People, due long deadlock, decide occupy factory, keep away.

Workers' committee of firm of Francisco José de Oliveira & Sons."

At that time we went through great financial difficulties.

I was filming "Benilde ou a Virgem Mãe"...

and after work I lobbied the ministries to find a solution for the factory...

... under the law for assistance for small and medium industry...

... created after 25 April.

But there was intrigue behind the scenes, with revolutionary acts and occupations,

which the government encouraged and protected...

... and the MFA allowed to happen.

My endeavours, therefore, were ingenuous,

because everything was systematically denied to me...

... by institutions and banks,

so there'd be a pretext for the occupation.

And that's what happened on 4 March 1975.

This was a grievous event for my life and my children's lives,

in the financial sense,

but it didn't touch my soul.

The factory had been renovated with the latest equipment.

When they returned the factory to us this was the state we found it in,

and they'd already removed some of the best machines.

Now it's empty, useless.

The buildings and land will be sold so we can pay our creditors:

Banco do Fomento Nacional, other banks...

... and suppliers of materials.

But I am not and never have been a man of industry.

What I am and always have been is a man of cinema.

Here I am in Tóbis Portuguesa,

the only film studio now existing in Portugal.

The studio, the lighting, the sets

are the most fascinating habitat of cinema.

The most artificial, the most composite, the most fun,

and the most illusory: but also the most authentic,

because it's the most cinematographic.

I say cinematographic in opposition to concrete reality,

for cinema made in a studio is always fiction.

And fiction is the true reality of cinema.

It's through fiction, I think, that we can best gauge reality,

or a concrete reality.

– Goodbye, Mr Gatekeeper.

With your feather duster you can dust the roof and the whole house.

– Until all that's left is a clearing where someone builds something else.

– A light went on. I wonder if someone's at home?

– Let's not start that again...

– It isn't that.

I think I'd rather have met a bad–tempered old housekeeper

that closed the door in our faces.

You can't see the magnolia any more,

but knowing that single flower is there, like a star,

gives me a kind of joy and strength.

I'm writing the treatment for my next film,

which is called "Não ou a vanglória de mandar".

It's a historical reflection on 25 April.

Why did I become so interested in this subject?

I'm not sure I know the answer.

Perhaps the shock of the great and sudden change...

... that was the revolution of 25 April.

Or perhaps because, since my schooldays,

I've been used to hearing about the history of Portugal.

And because this history seems connected with our childhood.

Our childhood is a kind of longing.

A longing in the sense that's it's a projection of a future.

I'm not a political person,

in the common acceptance of the term.

I never have been.

If deep down I am political,

it's in a historical sense, not party–political.

The fact is I felt impelled, unexpectedly caught up...

... in that interest, the historical curiosity to know better,

to examine the direction Portugal was taking,

perhaps influenced by my reading of some of our greatest poets,

like Camões, Father António Vieira,

Fernando Pessoa and José Régio.

Which makes me ask myself:

"What is it about the Portuguese that causes this bottomless curiosity?"

Territorially, we're one of the smallest countries in the world.

Why is it we take it upon ourselves,

feel ourselves obliged, to divine the destinies of the world,

as if we were responsible for it?

The sword and the earth,

the masculine and the feminine,

love and possession,

power and frustration.

Death as the end of everything?

Or the way to greater glory, beyond?

I remember my childhood, I remember my parents,

my wife, my children,

times gone by and a future that one day will be past.

I remember myself!

My infinitesimal presence...

... in time and space,

and... I disappear.

Translated by Mark Ayton