Original subtitles

This film was entirely acted by the inhabitants...

...of the neighbouring villages Bragan�a and Miranda do Douro.

White Flower said to the prince:

My father means to kill us as soon as he knows we're asleep.

Go to the stables, there you'll see two horses.

The stronger is Wind horse...

...the other is Thought horse. This is the one you shall bring.

But the prince mistakenly brought Wind horse.

White Flower felt very distressed, but there was no time left.

She spat three times and said:

As soon as the spittle dries up it'll answer for me.

They got on Wind horse and ran off.

Every now and then her father called: "White Flower!"

"Father!" the girl replied. "Sleep and rest."

He mounted Thought horse and soon spotted them.

And the prince said: "Dear me!, there comes your father to kill us."

White flower threw away a handful of sand, and there

...at once, an endless sea was formed

And the father couldn't pass

But while the prince was sleeping, his mother hugged him

...and he clean forgot all about White Flower, and her advices.

Seven years after the prince remembered princess White Flower

...but found no trace of her.

He travelled the world over.

And one day he heard it said that princess White Flower...

...had been sold as a slave and had been a prisoner...

...in the Tower of Babylon for seven years.

Eventually the prince came to an unknown land...

...where there was a very big city...

...and in the middle of it there was a very tall tower.

He asked an elderly little woman washing clothes in the river:

"What is that tall tower?"

It's the Tower of Babylon, those who go there no more return.

What are you writing?

My father came from Oporto yesterday

Me and mother went to the station, to meet father!

And what did he bring you? - A story book and this ball!

Let me play a bit too...

Eh! What about playing outside?

May I go too? - No, you're not going!

Armando, look that girl there who looks like your sister

That one there...

Looks like, but she is not.

She's now living near Miranda.

We haven't seen her for a whole year, since she got married.

Armando!

Eh! Do you want to go to the brook?

Last year, on your sister's wedding day we also went to the brook.

Do you remember, Carlos?

Armando, Armando look here!

Rui! What kind of stone is this?

It's a thunderbolt!

When there is a violent thunder- storm... there is lightning...

...which drills through the ground...

...and then a very dark, heavy stone, comes out!

- Mother! - Listen, your uncle Henrique...

Mother! The dike was like a loom in the afternoon!

Listen, your uncle Henrique is going to the Big House today.

Would you want to go there? He has given permission.

Wait! He also said you could bring the boat that's in the bedroom.

How's your husband?

He's hanging, you know...

Has he sent you good news?

He has sent news, the poor. He's there with a lot of work.

As for me, I'm here with the kids...

My daughter Mariana got married and moved to Itanes... life goes.

Where is my little Armando? - He went home...

Mother. I went to the Big House just now with Armando.

You took so long to come back

And the boat the uncle gave you, what happened to it?

I forgot it. We found a new gramophone there...

...ask Armando to tell you. It's so beautiful!

If only uncle would give me that gramophone...

The inside has the form of a stork.

You can close it as if it were a suitcase!

How I'd like to have that gramophone...

See you later.

A picture of a boy...

...a two equal beds room, the books...

...it must be my father...

Mother. What was grandfather like?

Grandfather loved you, my dear.

But I don't remember him!

You were very little when he died...

It was winter and it snowed heavily...

...the branches of the trees would bend down by the weight of the snow.

The roads were deep, very deep in snow...

Mother. Did grandfather love you too?

Yes, he did. He loved me tenderly.

Was he rich?

No, silly dear. He wasn't rich.

But wasn't he down there...

Oh yes, he went to Argentina...

...but he came back as rich as he went...

I thought he was rich, because the Big House was shut up...

At that time grandfather belonged to an important family.

He was very young and he ended up like his brother emigrating to Argentina.

And you, mother?

I'll tell you, later...

Mother, tell how you got to know grandfather!

I was ten...

...my mother was poor... there were three of us...

...me, my mother and my grandmother.

My mother could do several jobs.

It was her who baked the bread of the village...

...for this one and for on or two other villages around here.

One afternoon I was playing while working for my mother

...when I heard my grandmother call: "Ilda! Ilda!"

I didn't know what she wanted when she told me to hurry up.

It was only when I got home that I learned I had to dress...

...to create a good impression on my father...

I didn't kown him. I'd never seen him before.

- Mother... - Now you must go to sleep.

Once upon a time...

How long have you been there? - Not long.

Do you want to stay with us here in the cave?

No, we want to go home.

Don't go! No one in the village will recognize you.

No, we really want to go home.

I can already see our village from here.

I can make my house out.

No, it isn't my house...

It seems to be Montesinho. But I can't see my house, either.

What's the name of this village?

Where does Mr. Armando Manuel live?

And Mr. Luis Ferreira's?

They died many, many years ago.

They are our grandfathers in the seventh generation...

But how come you to speak about them now?

But we are Lu�s and Armando!

What d'you say, you rascals? How dare you pull our leg?

How dare you play such pranks on us?

But how can two boys like us be their own grandfathers?

Maybe a white dove...

...maybe a black dove were the season...

...there close to the mysterious cave.

Maybe our stroll hasn't lasted a few hours...

some few hours but many, many years, some centuries...

My sorrow has no likeness in this world, as long as life goes like this

Now I am dying for thee,

oh, my lady red and white!

Picture thee shall I, you say, Having seen you with no veil.

What wretched day I woke up and found you not a bit ugly!

In the name of God, amen.

That all those who lay eyes on this letter and read shall know...

...that I Don Dinis by the grace of God...

...King of Portugal and the Algarve...

...give and award unto thee, Branca Louren�o

...my town of Mirandela with all its things old and new...

...rights, rightnesses, revenues, advowsons...

...and with every power and royal right I have in that town...

...you shall be made to possess all your life.

And all this by the purchase of your body.

And so that this grant may be stronger and undoubted...

I have given thee Branca Louren�o this letter of mine sealed...

...with my lead signet ring.

Written in Lisboa on the twenty eighth day of June.

The King ordered it. Afonso Martins wrote it.

In the year thirteen hundred and nine.

How old these books are! Where did you get them?

Oh, who knows. I think they were at my grandfather's or great-grandfather's.

Look, there's Italy!

Look at the Sir with a moustache!

Look at the flag!

Oh, look! This man's playing the guitar...

Let's leave this one. Let's see another, shall we?

Yes, let's!

Orthographic crossreferring vocabulary!

Hey, Armando. You can stay there. Come here, Carlitos!

...we must write to father...

Adrito, we were very happy to receive a letter from you.

I'm going to give you a geography lesson;

I'm the sun and you're the earth.

...Everyone is good, thank God.

But you can't be the earth!

We really miss you coming to see us.

You sent word you were working in Paris.

I was already very happy with that...

...you should come back when you want to, for I miss you so.

I'm forever working and feeding our young cattle...

The money you sent me was little...

...but I still manage as well as I can.

I've already sold a calf, you know.

They gave little money for it.

...but maybe now I'll be able to pay back all that we owe.

And on one side of the river...

...there was a flock of white sheep.

On the other side there was a flock of black sheep.

And as one white sheep bleated...

...one of the black sheep would come across...

...and would be white...

...and as one of the black sheep bleated...

...one of the black white sheep would come across...

...and would become black.

A tree that grew on the river bank...

... and half of it was burning...

...from its root to its tip...

... while the other half was covered with green leaves.

We're finally going to have rain for the wheat and the rye.

Hello! How are you keeping? - Hello! Not bad, you know.

And what about you, are you fine too? More or less, not bad either.

How's my brother Francisco?

Poor soul is still ill there... Getting worse and worse.

I've already told him to come

But you know, he wouldn't come...

As far as I'm concerned mines are always like that...

they get in there and they begin to earn some money...

But it doesn't pay. They all have silicosis, they're all...

He left home full of life...

Those afternoons full of heart-rending cries...

...the whole village was panic-stricken...

...the workers' quarter looked like, I don't know...

...a anthill of distressed women, everything was paralysed...

...only the machines couldn't stop...

...they all continued working, normally...

...the machines were impassive,

but these people... they ran fast...

...the old folks stood there waiting...

...And then coming down the hill, in helmets came the youngsters...

...they were still kids in manly gear...

...helmet, gasometer and large boots like men's...

...they helped the miners;

Those kids escaped in terror...

...what had happened ...and they came and told

...that it was such mine that collapsed...

...it was this or that pile that rolled down...

...that it was this guy who worked with the machine and

...the whole ceiling came down on him...

...and there they remained...

...and then the families began to get together...

...they began to gather.

And then in such a close-down, promiscuous environment...

...what happens down there in the mines where...

...the quarters of the mines that is, the houses are...

built very close together...

...looking like kids' constructions all glued together...

...they all have the same window they all have...

...a door as well, a tiny stair with only two steps and...

...where you can give a message from wall to wall... those people know one another

...they date each other through the walls...

...and after a few years those people are all near kin...

...when there aren't really related...

...there's at least some ties of friendship...

...or other form of close relationship.

There's something funny about these communities...

...the people marry one another, the people...

...are sons and daughters of those...

...other are cousins, others grandsons, other sons-in-law...

...others are I don't know what.

And when there isn't anything of the kind...

...people avoid to segregate anybody and they even say:

so-and-so will be godfather to our next daughter.

And in the end all are connected with the rest.

Such a disaster hits everybody and deeply.

And there were some who reported gay events...

...some who reported sad ones but...

...in the end what was most tragic still was that...

...they told those things and the people...

...who accompanied that long funeral...

...which lasted days, well those people were absolutely sure...

...that a few weeks later, a year later...

...they'd be the protagonists of another similar play.

But I don't know... my land today... alas!

My land had so many people...

...it was a place where you could live...

...and today it is a a land of absentees.

They have their names there...

they have their emptiness there...

... here lived such and such a man...

and so-and-so.

The little place where we were born...

...is not very near the frontier...

...on the contrary!

Distance that undoubtedly... ...no one of us has ever been there.

So many are the high desert plateaux...

...so many are the fertile plains to cross!

And however much farther than the frontier...

if we're allowed to compare such distances...

...much more remote even than the frontier...

...there stands the capital.

We occasionally get some news of fights on the frontier...

...but of the capital we get practically nothing.

I want to speak from our part, country- folk, from this place and other...

...because the Government officials here...

should have better communications with the capital.

They do not get any order or message from down there in...

...but two or three months later

if you are to trust what they say.

It is strange therefore...

and it amazes me to see us...

...all quiet and still in our small village...

...with all the measures...

...taken in the capital.

For this place's folk, the capital...

...is still more unknown than the next world itself!

Can a town really exist...

...that where as far as the eye can reach...

...one house touches another...

...in a flock bigger than what is seen from our hills, and where...

...among those houses, men press in multitudes?

Such is the impression these folk have about their king.

These folk don't know which king reigns at present...

...and even the name of the dynasty remains obscure.

In our villages kings have since long left the throne...

...and that king who lives in legend only...

...has just now delivered a decree which the priest...

...reads aloud at the foot of the altar.

In the capital kings succeeded others...

...whole dynasties died out or crumbled down...

...others were then founded.

In the last century the very capital was destroyed;

...another one was erected a long way off...

...which was destroyed as well...

...so the ancient one was reconstructed...

...and all this didn't present any repercussion...

...in our little village life.

Our administration hasn't changed.

The biggest officials always come from the capital;

...the less important ones, if they don't, they come at least from outside;

...only the smallest one are men from our village.

Nothing changed.

And we felt happy about it.

One, two, three ... thirteen.

Thirteen and three?

Sixteen. Throw it!

What happened? What happened?

He fell over the pigeon-loft.

It's nothing, it's nothing...

My dear, shut up for me to sing you a song...

...it was nothing, you see.

"Those men shall rise and dance."

That's nothing, young man, come on!

You can already take the calves to pasture...

...they're pretty big now!

There you are, you're ready now.

There's no one who can fool the law ordains...

...Tell those men who laugh to rise up and rise up...

Tell those men to rise and dance.

This is what the folk do with the memories of the past;

...as for today's, they mix them up with the dead.

The people know nothing about the laws:

The laws are a secret of the small group...

...of noblemen who govern us.

What torture it is to be governed by laws...

...we don't know about.

I won't even mention the different interpretations...

...they make at their own will...

...not even the evil in the interpretations...

...chosen by the small number of privileged people...

...to the rest of the country's loss.

It is said that the laws exist and have always existed...

...as a secret entrusted to powerful and noblemen only ...

...and only for their own profit.

But that can be no more than an old tradition.

Those laws that we are oblivious about, and that we pursue with patience...

...for we mean to solve them for a long time,

are only wild imaginations, nothing more.

Maybe in truth they don't exist, after all.

Listen, I'll be leaving. I'm going home.

Don't forget to drop by Mariana's...

...and see whether the child is any better:

I have to put these threads together first.

Hello neighbour, how are you doing?

She's quite all right, thank God.

Why hasn't she... yet...?

No, she hasn't yet. But she's about to...

...And the Doctor sure is coming.

The first time is rather painful, eh?

It is. But we all must suffer...

...we must suffer a little bit...

Tell her I wish she gets well soon.

Now I'll stop by Mariana's...

And I'll stop by our neighbour's.

Mariana!

Good afternoon.

Is the little girl better? - She's sleeping now...

She had a very hard time during the night.

Listen, I just passed at Domingos'...

...as his wife is ill...

as she's about to have their first baby...

So they called for the city doctor...

...and they came to ask you of you wanted me to tell...

...the doctor to come and see the girl...

I'd be truly grateful. Yes, if you please.

All right, I'll go and make sure if he can come...

...and then I'll tell you.

They still have something to eat for now...

...Only last Winter poor little things!

Mariana! The doctor's already arrived.

He's coming to see the little girl...

...and now everything will be all right.

Mariana!

Good afternoon! - A good afternoon, if God will!

Are you feeling better?

I'm a bit better, but we're already old...

I was twelve or something...

...and from twelve to eighty three...

are the years I have of our craft...

Around sixty or seventy years...

...and I miss the craft so much!

I can't... my eyesight...

...my sight is not as it was, my eyes...

I never come here.

...but whenever I pass by that door I can't help coming in.

...as I was born and bread in this...

I developed this love for the craft.

I didn't work for money...

I worked for I loved the craft...

And so the time passed, like this...

Well, when time comes how are we going to manage?

I don't know. Badly, I think...

But you will manage somehow.

...but agriculture needs him... ...a blacksmith...

We should have someone here...

Now the folk run to foreign countries...

There's nobody who will want to work these days...

See you later...

Good afternoon, Luisa! - Good afternoon, Mr.

What are you doing?

What? Wasting time... - How about Zeca da Mar?

He's doing some work for Antonio Roque...

Good, good, that's fine...

See you later , eh? - S'all right!

Any news? - My father wrote yesterday...

...my mother's not here, he wrote from Germany!

Come closer! That's perfect, son...

...a fish...

A little closer, come on, let's get that one...

The fish won't get out... - It's got to, son!

It's twisted, look! Let me take it out.

Do you see? Now, look at me...

You have to take it out like this, look...

You have to look for a way in the pockets. D'you want to see?

Now it's almost done.

Look, look, grab it from the side of you.

Now it's going to fall back...

...there, it's coming out.

And another one again! Wait there again!

Germany.

Spain.

In Tr�s-os-Montes, in the district of Bragan�a...

...there is a small village called Constantim.

It locates very far from the big city.

It has rye-fields,

and the shade of ancient oaks.

The looms rattle cheerfully.

The ox-carts creak along the narrow streets.

Girls go to fetch water in the fountain...

And the boys go gather dry sticks.

The inhabitants of Constantim are poor.

When alive, they are the dwellers of Constantim.

If dead, they are the folk of the village of Constantim.

Mother! A letter's just arrived! - Who is it from, son?

It's from aunt Matilde, from Casal Ventoso.

Luis, when are you going to Oporto to study?

Casal Ventoso, 15.1.1970.

Dear sister, I have much hope that this letter...

of mine will find you happy and in perfect health...

...and that I may be presently doing well at the moment, thank God.

...Receive my wishes 1000 other times for you and Antonio...

...Farewell, I'll wait for your answer...

...a warm embrace for uncle Domingos and Constantim...

I embrace Jorge and Luciano as well...

...and will you tell Clementina to write me...

address...

Goodbye and don't you forget to write... Matilde.

Nobody stays here...

...Yesterday Mariana's daughter went away...

...tomorrow, God knows who's going to leave...