Original subtitles

"The tenderest sweetness and the most atrocious cruelty

coalesce here to make us

the most sorrowful and suffering people that we are

and the most brutal and insensitive people

that we also are." Darcy Ribeiro

So, this is how your film begins, with this image.

Black people strolling on a vast beach surrounded by abandoned ships

and the flying figures of ravenous vultures.

In the beginning of the 20th century, despite the abolition of slavery,

hundreds of people continued to be kidnapped

from small villages and faraway lands in Mozambique

and taken to Brazil.

People who were worth the risk of the illegal trade

because they were protected and guided by spirits of wealth and chance

able to scent the gold and gemstones in Brazilian lands.

That's how a boy was taken from here, haunted and alone.

A boy whose spirit both of protection and bad luck

had a curious name.

A YELLOW ANIMAL

(A BRAZILIAN FILM)

PART 1 COLONIAL GHOSTS

That man you're filming

is your grandfather.

Owner of lands in the Brazilian countryside,

he had raised cattle in his youth, secretly owned slaves,

made a lot of money, and left his family in search of delusions of wealth and glory.

Dreams whispered by a mysterious human femur

he carried around on his waist,

and which he said hid his memories and secrets of the past.

But time went by

and your grandfather still hadn't found shit

under the soil he had cleared and destroyed as if he were a giant.

It was 1984.

The year democracy seemed to be returning to your land,

and your grandfather, lonely and riddled with debt,

started living alone in a wood house with a guitar player,

a boy who had fallen in love with him

and was the only person that didn't treat him like a madman.

Finding love after growing old

could ease the void in the chest of that rough and proud man.

Brazil will hold direct presidential elections in 1988.

But his night fevers did not calm down,

and your grandfather would go out into the night,

when he said he heard voices, talked to the shadows,

and saw the burly and curious African spirit,

which he said would someday release him from that life of misery and silence...

and give him a place among the great.

Among kings.

My heart catches on fire

Asks if he's coming back

My shattered chest

Reflects your gaze from afar

Why don't you come and pierce through me?

Cut off my fears and crash the party

Burn my lips and open my eyes

I dance without looking, I dance blindly

Burn my lips and wake me up

Wake me up and wake me up

Why don't you come and pierce through me?

Cut off my fears and crash the party

Discover your gaze on my body

Burn my lips and open my eyes

Wake me up and wake me up

Wake me up and...

My heart catches on fire

You left before the last song.

Juliano...

My youngest son called.

My grandson was born.

That's nice...

You know what that means, right?

Besides the fact that I'm getting older, now I officially became a grandfather.

No, my love.

What does it mean, grandpa?

I'll have to go and meet the little monster.

And you'll be here all by yourself for a couple of days.

You'll take care of the house, the mine, the dogs, the guitar, and yourself.

Alright.

I can do that.

You're going to Rio, bring me a record.

A gift, whatever.

I want to learn a new song.

You know what my greatest fear is, right?

You know how scared I am of this town.

How scared I am of that whirlwind of prudes.

I can look out for myself.

I'm a smart black man.

Dangerous.

You too, man.

Take care.

You spineless old white man.

Only after you were born,

after years of being apart from the family,

did your grandfather cross the night to go down to Rio de Janeiro.

To meet the one who would one day be heir to all his wealth

and to that piece of a corpse he carried around.

Did you really have to bring that here, dad?

You know there's only one thing to be said tonight, don't you?

I don't.

Holy shit, a son.

That's the only thing one can say.

That's why I'm in favor of direct elections in the next year.

No one knows exactly what happened that winter night.

Some say the boy got himself killed

trying to use the bulldozer to speed up the search for riches in the mines.

Some say the little men from the brutal town did it,

because they couldn't stand the joy of two men in love.

Some say it was the very spirit known as yellow animal that took revenge

on that loutish stubborn man who wouldn't give up the wealth and glory

he would never achieve now.

But all one could see was blood and entrails,

and your grandfather's bloody hands.

loutish and heartbroken,

your grandfather Sebasti�o was convicted months later.

He died years later, when he was about to be released.

Some say he died of sadness.

And that's where you come into your own film.

An heir.

But what kind of heir are you, such a gentle boy?

What kind of madmen are you, child filmmaker?

To grow up like that...

in a world so devoid of everything.

Becoming a man is hard, isn't it, filmmaker?

You, a scrawny fragile boy, afraid of everything,

was now being followed by a huge mocking shadow,

frightening and helping you,

haunting and taking care of you.

And it would give you the courage to jump through the window at night

and write the name of your first love all over the school's walls.

Your heart was racing like a ridiculous hot air balloon,

and you heard the same mysterious voice that once whispered to your grandpa

the painful memories of a never-ending past.

It was only after your grandfather died and the bone appeared,

that you felt time was passing.

Your hands growing disorderly, hair sprouting all over your body.

Your voice, still fragile, wanting to sing of the cruel and clumsy courage

of the heroes in American movies.

Fernando?

It was only after your grandfather died, that the figure whispered to you

that all loves disappear one day,

swallowed into the depths of that golden and kind shadow

that would keep each and every one of your gestures.

Each one of your loves,

every single thought,

and would never let you forget anything.

Ew...

What is it?

I don't want to see that.

It's just that last night I became a man.

And I wanted you to be the first to know.

It's just that I really

really, really

really like you, Carolina.

My grandpa gave this to me.

It's a magic bone.

A real bone.

That's so disgusting, Fernando.

I'm sorry.

Fernando...

Oh, shit!

What is it?

And that would be your curse and your adventure.

Out of all diseases, the one thar eats up your bones the most

is memory, filmmaker.

PART 2 AN HEIR

NEXT IN LINE

So?

Mr. Fernando, you are aware that as your account manager

it's not my job to analyze a film script, right?

-Is that clear to you, sir? -Sure.

Of course it's clear.

It's just that you made some requirements over the phone,

and I thought it would be a good idea for you to know about the script.

I'm aware it's no blockbuster.

But I'm sure a small sale here

another sale there...

That we'll be able to get.

A yellow-haired monster that eats little children.

An old fag married to a Mozambican slave.

A bone, an actual femur,

speaking in an African dialect...

It sings!

It sings in Makua.

Besides, I saw the ad on TV

saying you really like culture,

sports,

and the Brazilian flag.

You were raised in downtown Rio, among Carnival passions,

dark streets and hidden cigarettes,

and saw your country plunge into the dream

of finally becoming the Eldorado of the new century,

where you could make what you loved the most: cinema.

Did you go to the bank?

Did they like the script?

2% would vote for a candidate from indigenous origins.

I moved back to my dad's house, 15 years later.

I feel like a castaway pirate calling his mommy.

Come and pick me up!

The whole country is like that.

A royal shitstorm.

What matters to most people in terms of choosing a candidate.

But money dried up, the glitter of gold glittering.

Good men were still good, bad men were still bad.

Out with Temer! Coup-monger!

And while the country was going under,

you filmed that kind young man you chose to embody your pain in film.

And the love mirages were vanishing

along with illusions of a pacified country.

So, once again, the blood of history covered the streets,

without you even realizing what was going on.

Dad?

Are you sleeping?

Just taking a nap, son.

I'm back.

With that same sourpuss face.

Just older.

Some people say It's important to have a handsome president.

Can I help you?

You can.

There's dirty water.

Hair.

Pieces of something yellow, I don't even know what it is.

A fluorescent goo.

A red liquid with a few scattered pubes.

All falling from our ceiling.

I had to put on my dangerous jaguar slippers.

And come warn you before my mother noticed

the terrible calamity that befell my house.

Mr...

Fernando.

I hope it serves as an example.

I have the utmost institutional respect for President Dilma Rousseff.

I won't discuss the reasons why she was impeached.

I just want to stress the importance of respect for institutions.

I don't know what's happening to me lately.

My body hair started to fall out.

There's a spirit in the living room.

He's all over the place.

The girl almost saw it.

Who is she?

The beginning of a conversation seeking understanding.

In a country where 5 million black people were enslaved

and more than 10 million indigenous souls were ripped from bodies,

how could think that a movie or a gesture you made...

Not now.

...could save you from the abyss?

Specially you, a white Brazilian man,

with no origin and no identity,

not European, African or indigenous.

The son and the grandson of concealed kidnappings and rapes

bearing in your chest only tenderness and shipwreck.

Hi, Sofia.

Fer?

Sorry for coming in like that, without notice.

You haven't gone yet.

I just wanted to see you.

Talk to you.

Our lives are falling apart and you're swallowing pain and smoke?

I'd forgotten what cowards you boys are in times like these.

It's not fear.

It just hurts too much.

To see your pretty little foot kicking me out.

Bye, beautiful boy.

Bye, ugly boy.

Bye, vile poet.

Bye, my partner.

So, I don't know if Pedro told you,

but I really liked the script.

I really did.

I admire your work and your courage.

It's so cool to really believe in cinema like that.

I did tell him.

Fernando was very excited.

That's great.

I was.

I really was.

Once, an American critic

said I was ridiculously clumsy.

Critics...

"Clumsy."

I never got to give that man a hug,

to thank him.

I really like your work, too.

I really do.

You have a...

tenderness

in surviving among sharks.

Sharks...

So, I think the film is very poetic.

I really do.

I just have an issue with the ending, I can't understand why.

The character's motivation to abandon everything

and chase those crazy dreams of wealth and glory.

I think that if we were able to get into his psychology,

to explain the character a little better,

I think that might be good for the film.

-Do you understand? -I do.

I do understand.

And there's something else I must mention.

-That yellow animal! -The yellow animal.

-There's a yellow animal. -There is.

Have you considered leaving that animal out?

We stick to what's essential. We can film reality.

-Real life is enough. -Yeah, sometimes...

What the fuck, Fernando?

I...

I thought there was a...

How do say it? A bug on his shoulder.

I... I...

Fernando!

Fuck!

Three months to get that meeting and you fuck it all up!

Shit!

I'll never produce films for crazy people again!

So, in that frame, laughing and crying,

your world started to convulse.

In the same small beach where the first Indians were killed,

and where the black people arrived in chains,

while your country's hidden corpses were rising from the ground,

singing the end of utopia and the return of darkness,

other spirits like yours held in their hair

whatever delusions and mockeries could be saved

in days of death, violence, and silence.

Thanks, dad.

You shouldn't have bothered.

Make yourself at home.

I'll watch a loud action movie.

One that makes me sleepy. I'm going to sleep.

Ouch.

That's it.

You're not going to die anymore.

How beautiful.

Did you write it?

I did.

Can I take some and say I wrote them?

Holy shit...

I was dead among angels.

And now this.

Door.

I noticed you have a boat tattooed on your butt.

That's a low blow for a pirate.

So, shut up, and go back to being a child, captain.

Come here.

Put your hand between my legs.

And tell me the name of the place where you want to go.

Come on, tell me.

Mozambique.

For me, heaven would be to die in Mozambique.

And to fulfill my grandfather's curse.

To be rich, idle, and brutal.

So, among whimpers, debts, and exile,

you dreamed of throwing a bomb on fate and fleeing that battered country,

guided by your grandfather's delusions

and the whispers of your loving African spirit.

So, the fable could finally start over again.

And the madness would bring you to the beginning of everything,

and to me.

Once upon a time

there was a spineless Brazilian man.

PART 3 THE FABLE OF THE PALE PIRATE

So, you reached my village, Brazilian man,

at the Mozambique Zimbabwe border,

in search of easy wealth and clues about the past of the man

whose corpse you carried on your waist like a trophy.

People at the mine started calling you muzungo,

a pale pirate, without origin,

who walked like a sleepwalker,

and sang joys like a child of Indiana Jones,

without any cameras to film you.

- I think he's alive! - No, he's dead!

- I think he's alive! - No, he's dead!

Muzungo.

And that's how you became a local legend.

And the boys in the mine's camp couldn't figure out if your paleness

was the result of disease or the fact that you were already dead.

There, in the place where I come from, white skin was the color of the dead.

The color we used on our faces to try to speak to death.

That's why only one of them had the courage to walk with you

through the forbidden mountains.

The mountains where the universe was supposedly created,

and where women now cried over their missing children.

No one knew if they had been swallowed by spirits

or by the militias of the European or Chinese corporations

that bought and stole our lands.

Disguised as Allan Quatermain,

lying about your name and hiding your past in Brazil,

you would meet the two loves of my life,

my companions, my partners,

and embark on a feverish dream.

Hey, man, what's up?

I'd like to know what my friend is doing there.

A white man in a troubled area.

Me?

Do you have a bone tied to your waist, or am I seeing things?

Usually it's the young who disobey.

You may not believe it, but this land belongs to someone.

But my friend here seems to be old enough to understand the dangers of the world.

Where do you come from?

Me?

I come from Espa�a.

Soy un... I'm a lover of birds.

Birds?

And what birds were you observing down in that hole?

The hole is like a hideout.

The birds in Mozambique are so shy.

They're really terrible, and they don't like being observed.

No, they don't.

Have you heard anything about this, Cesarino?

I did hear something like that.

I even have documents here.

No, no.

We don't want any explanation.

There's something you need to learn here in Mozambique.

When someone tells you there's no problem,

you better believe it.

Now, go.

Birds! Birds!

What an idiot!

"Who's that crazy white man?", said a man.

A woman said, "Who allowed him to walk on the forbidden mountain?"

"It was Hermilinda's son, wasn't it?", said another one with sweeter eyes.

"That ghost should be more careful", said a scared boy.

"He'll end up going missing," said a stronger taller man.

So, among the voices and whispers of those men and women covered in dirt,

your sparks of joy would dim, and your kind Brazilian heart would learn

that no singing could erase the screams of the past.

And that without your sensitive filmmaker facade,

you were only another unlucky and loutish pale man,

like so many others who passed through our lands.

Still, they laughed at you.

And they liked you.

Because that's a gift you do have, Brazilian man.

That of digging out the sweetness in others,

just for being so foolish and stubborn.

I want to be rich.

I want to be rich and loutish.

I want to be rich.

I want to be rich and loutish.

I will have speedboats, ships,

women, palaces, and all that!

I want to eat gold.

I want to have teeth made of diamonds.

And I'll have rubies inlaid in my hair.

I want to be king!

Being king is better than working.

I want to be king.

I want to be king!

But I will be a just and loutish king...

Go away, stupid white boy!

You can't sing, you can't work!

And you get men in trouble with that ridiculous dream.

Go away, Mary Poppins!

Since you've been here, gold is gone!

You bring bad luck.

I was singing in tune.

No, it wasn't in tune!

Go away!

You unlucky man!

Bye, guys.

So, my friend, how are the birds doing?

Look, I know...

it'll seem like a lie.

But I am a Brazilian specialist

in the Belgian goldfinch from the Congo.

So, how does it sing?

You have to close your eyes.

Am I too screwed?

Would you work for these two beautiful nice

black Mozambicans?

Then, you rode 200km to reach the coast.

The city of Beira.

The second largest city in Mozambique.

It was once turned into a resort filled with luxury hotels,

for the Portuguese to sweat under the tropical sun.

Until blood was spilled.

Time changed and overthrew the empire.

And we remained here, fishers, vendors, and war refugees,

under the ruins of what was once a temple to colonial genocide,

built with the blue of swimming pools

and the crystalline light of gin and tonics.

We stand here, in front of your camera,

in this Beira Grand Hotel.

My Apache Fortress.

My Vatican.

My Alcatraz.

When you came to see me for the first time.

I, queen of myself.

You, the clueless white man, lost in time,

and carrying the ghost kidnaped to Brazil,

about whom I've been hearing in legends since I was little,

and who returned like that, in such clumsy company.

Hasn't he given up yet?

I tried, but...

I didn't give up.

Once again.

Once again.

That's enough.

To work with me, you don't have to do anything you don't already know.

To lie.

Brazilians are a race of liars.

Award-winning international criminals.

You just have to honor your blood.

You'll be happy with us.

Do you understand?

Now, you'll get to know our little miracle.

Do you understand?

So, is it a good one?

It's a great one!

Three cheers to Cesarino's asshole!

Cheers!

Do you see it?

Did you think you were the only one to have secrets?

That's how we Mozambicans are.

Our gemstones don't come from mines the whites buy and take from us.

We produce our gemstones ourselves.

These beauties come from the food we eat,

from our guts!

A spiritual redress.

Regardless of whites accepting it or not.

And you are now my serf.

Dr...

Sebasti�o.

Dr. Sebasti�o the Serf.

Make-believe international geologist!

You'll help us sell the gemstones produced

by our prodigious asses.

And don't you dare say no.

PLAN FOR MAGNIFICENT FUTURE

Maybe out of fear or curiosity for our miracle,

you accepted to be the James Bond puppet

I'd been dreaming about finding for a long time.

With your sunburned skin, and afraid of everything,

you lent us your pale face

to convince international crooks and treasure hunters to trade with us.

How ugly were your dreams, Sebasti�o.

How ugly you were all over.

Even so, you would cross heaven and earth with us.

Even so, you were stuck with us up to the hair on your white ass.

And that's how you arrived in Lisbon: carrying our luggage

with your tail between your legs,

while the miracle from our guts promised the future

your grandfather always dreamed about.

PART 4 THE ETERNAL SHIT FROM PORTUGAL

You arrived in Lisbon and went to visit an old friend with me.

A former soldier,

a hunter of gold and elephants who had loved my mother in the past,

and whom I refused to call my father.

It's really you.

The vengeful black woman took a plane to come look for me.

Or is this a feverish delusion from Louren�o Marques, the old capital?

The black woman did take a plane,

from Maputo, the new capital, to Lisbon.

She came to do business with the old soldier, Mr. Jo�o.

Your mother took me out of the war front with her bare hands.

Has that woman finally died?

That's pure richness.

Who's the pretty boy pretending to be honest?

He works for me.

Good morning, daddy.

So many guests!

See, daddy, finally a good man.

I'm Sebasti�o, a mineral engineer from Brazil.

At your service.

Susaninha.

Nice to meet you.

So, daddy, are we having dinner tomorrow?

Of course.

All of us?

The Brazilwood man?

And these nice black people.

Yes, let's have dinner.

My deal with my old friend and his daughter was a simple one.

They were in contact with the whole international network

of buyers of smuggled gemstones,

and we brought our mysterious precious jewels,

sprouting from our prodigious African bowels.

Following the old European traditions,

the first sales were meant to cover the white people's expenses.

Their luxury, the expensive dinners, the champagne,

and the snails you ate like a fool.

The second sales would be ours.

Mine and my two lovers'.

And you, Brazilian man, would fulfill your destiny.

To be the jackass of History, carrying the world's past on your shoulders,

and trading impossible loves and dreams for a handful of dollars.

So, Mr. Sebasti�o, why don't you tell us more about your wonderful adventures.

Surely, daddy's friends didn't come here to see my pretty lips chewing snails.

They are eager to listen.

Even the Chinese man, who's a Buddhist.

I could come here just to watch you chew, Ms. Susana.

But I understand the time for contemplation is over,

and nowadays everybody is a hurry and has so little money.

So little.

Therefore, I invite the gentleman to smell Catarina's foot.

Sense how nice that little foot smells.

That's why I always said Mozambique had potential.

The times I hunted elephants, before the blacks kicked us out.

Hold on!

Daddy, no nostalgia tonight.

No wars and no memories, so we can keep our good health, right?

I'd like to toast a beautiful evening.

That way, the soil of Mozambique would finally give us back

what time and history had ripped out of our bodies.

How badly I want to see my pretty black girl

Dressed as a real lady

With a Honda motorcycle and a lot of money

What?

Up till now, everything's fine, right, Brazilian?

Up till now, your birds have brought you a long way.

I just wanted to tell you one thing.

If you betray us,

I swear I'll rip out that cock.

How I wished to the be happy

To live my life like I always wanted

To be the prettiest flower in the favela

To live by the ocean

The first days were good.

And your scumbag performance made everyone laugh.

And that's how we convinced Susana, the soldier's beloved daughter,

to introduce us to a family friend.

This shit remains exactly the same.

The eternal shit from Portugal.

Take it easy, girl. There's still hope.

Hope?

Always the last to die.

Oh, poor thing.

An old white man, a loutish defender of Salazar,

heir to lands, with no education and nothing in his head.

Besides calling himself a philosopher, he also called himself Baron.

We have company.

Company!

Do-mi-no

If you had seen what I saw, domino

The door to the courthouse, domino

The judge's underwear, domino

Wrapped in newspaper, domino

This street smells like blood, domino

Someone killed themselves, domino

It was my lover's mother, domino

She threw herself out of the window.

Do-mi-no.

Oh, Sir Baron, don't you get tired of repeating that same old song?

That same abysmal sleep-inducing thing.

Or is it that besides being impotent you are also going deaf with age?

Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.

He likes it.

Crime, love, and anarchy.

When I was young, I believed in those things.

But one day my mother passed away, in 1975,

and I inherited this small haven,

where I created a school of music, dance, etiquette, and morals.

Out of sheer stubbornness.

Cheers to the Baron!

So, tell me why you're here at once.

Allow me, Sir Baron.

It so happens that you haven't met a man like me in a long time.

As pathetic as I am.

Without any sense of shame,

and with so many little stones like this one,

sprouting from my heart.

Go on.

Go on!

I'm amused.

You know those days when you wake up thinking, "I'm God"?

Good one!

If it weren't for you, the sun wouldn't be shining.

You're a well-spoken man.

And a tropical one!

Tell me, what do you want from this poor man,

a romantic, the owner of a music and dance school.

An NGO with a corps de ballet.

Do you think this is right?

You're being exploited by three former slaves.

Do you think?

Next weekend, bring some of those stones and we'll do business.

Are we agreed, Mr. Sebasti�o?

Talk to your black friends.

Take care of my little Susana.

She was once my hope.

Then, one day...

she ran away.

The Baron didn't like people...

Everything OK, love?

...much less people like us.

We did it, didn't we?

We did it, but at what price?

For how many days haven't you shit gemstones?

And our eyes could no longer hide the tragedy that was foreseen

from the moment we set foot in this barren Lusitanian land.

Men...

sometimes behave like a noisy animal.

And then they plunge into deathly silence.

I like your ass.

Your crazy face.

That of a princess of a fallen kingdom.

I'm not crazy.

Or a princess.

I'm a businesswoman.

A businesswoman in the mineral business.

I was really impressed to see a ruby inlaid down there.

I have rubies inlaid everywhere, dear.

My idea is to remove my heart

and put a stone in its place.

But for that I'll need a stone the size of my fist.

If destiny allows it.

You have a funny way to come.

You make a sound similar to that of the Belgian goldfinch from the Congo.

It's a bird I made up.

You made up a bird that doesn't exist?

And then you say it sounds like me coming with you on a hotel bed.

You are a cad.

One with wings, but still a cad.

Come on, let me go.

Let me go.

Daddy won't go to sleep before I come home.

Will we see each other tomorrow?

But what could go wrong, right, King Sebasti�o?

And so, you and your heartless girl dreamed of running away,

riding horses to the desert.

To one day return with tanned bodies, darker skin, and metallic bodies,

while you looted that white body like a pirate,

and she pretended she could forever escape that great patriarchal bullshit

called peace of mind.

Are you listening, monkey?

What is it, man?

It's just that I'm still impressed by your ruby.

Your 200-thousand-Euro clitoris.

There it is.

I'm not just what shines on the outside.

I have history.

But bad luck and delusion won't abandon a man just like that.

And the wind that blows the sand of the Sahara desert onto cars in Lisbon

also brought back your yellow figure on that summer afternoon.

Letters and storms are terrible omens for those who wish to sail far away.

CYCLONE WRECKS CITY OF BEIRA AND SOLAFA PROVINCE. OVER 500 MISSING.

Images of a true tragedy.

We need to talk, Brazilian man.

Shit happened.

Everything went wrong, Sebasti�o.

How come?

Get out!

Seixas, draw him a picture.

You can take care of your own life, it doesn't belong to us anymore.

F_CK_D

Wait a minute...

What about our deals?

What about the Baron?

What about Susana?

Her father... Ouch!

If I show up empty-handed, they'll throw me to the hogs.

Why don't the four of us go to the beach?

Shut up, Sebasti�o!

I'll handle the white Portuguese.

They are mediocre, cruel, and predictable.

You should worry about the two gemstones that are missing.

The last two stones we had to pay the bills,

and they're nowhere to be found.

What's going on?

What's going on?

Our bodies don't want to give us the gemstones that brought us here.

Since we arrived in this Lusitanian land...

we weren't able to produce a single stone in our guts.

We shit orderly and ordinarily.

Since we arrived, we only shit actual shit.

Just like everyone else.

We're no more than ordinary people.

Do you hear, Sebasti�o?

The gold watch, the clothes, the shoes, everything!

We're going to take it all back to sell in Mozambique.

The loan we gave you is over.

GLOBAL WARMING MAY BE CAUSE OF GREATEST NATURAL DISASTER IN AFRICA

We're going and you're staying.

A cyclone ravished our city, Brazilian man.

And you're worried about yacht adventures with your rich piss-colored girl.

A cyclone hit the city of Beira.

That's why we can no longer find wealth in our fleeing bodies.

Our bodies don't exist without the land we eat.

And you're to blame,

for the bad luck you carry in your weightless dreams.

And so we left,

leaving you whining in your underwear in a hotel room.

We needed to throw a bomb on our fate and reinvent our lives in Mozambique.

Once there and without fear, to see our land wrecked by a cyclone,

and take on our revenge against the world.

Forsaken, you walked alone on the streets

of a neighborhood full of immigrants and refugees like yourself.

People from all over the world,

where one day Portuguese soldiers walked killing people and controlling lands.

Until you mustered the courage to go after her.

The stone-hearted princess.

The one you dared call "my love", like a clown.

Wow...

I thought you had died, man.

But would she give you a second chance, filmmaker?

You, who could barely recognize a woman's swallowed pain.

Even hers, a heartless woman.

Break this window Sever the sea

Hear the bitter song of the sirens

My feet are made only of somewhere else

I don't want you sailing in my veins

My feet are made only of somewhere else

I don't want you sailing in my veins

An underwater and drifting monster

You don't know what it means not to breathe

And even if you drown in an old dream

My laughter will keep the sea in its hands

And even if a dream drowns within you

My laughter will keep the sea in its hands

Monkey?

Get up.

Take this, it's yours.

Yes, it is open. I read it and I know everything.

So, you disappeared.

A letter from a Brazilian girl telling you she loves you.

And your name is Fernando.

She had your child and you're just a broke filmmaker,

and a coward like all the others.

I'm sorry.

Making movies? What a dreadful thing.

My love...

Love?

No love.

What are you going to do about love?

Are going to disappear like a coward?

Are you going to abandon the adventures and the lies?

You are going to grow old and pay bills.

But every time I come on another man's dick,

you'll feel a passing wind pressing your balls,

to remind you that I'm doing great here without you.

And at that moment, I'll be queen.

You'll still be the same.

I will be queen.

And you'll continue to be like that, a man.

Is that the slave?

It's beautiful.

More beautiful than you...

and me.

You scumbag.

LAST PART A TROPICAL SORROW

So, you returned to Brazil with your tail between your legs

and two gemstones stolen from your African friends.

You returned to Brazil to meet your son

and try to make a movie.

I was ellected to fight the communist ideology and criminals,

and to defend the police force.

Brazil above all!

Hi, Lu.

The problem with the pirate is to think he invented the sea.

And that he alone can scape the awful universal trickery he chases.

And to think he invented ships.

That he sailed alone.

To think the world stopped spinning while he tried to be less of a coward.

Coward.

-Lu... -Luisa!

These are rubies.

With one of them, we'll raise our little Sebasti�o.

With the other, I'm going to make my film.

The country is sadder, Fer.

The country is even more fucked up and abysmal than when you left.

Some of my friends were arrested for protesting on the street.

Others are leaving.

Brazil above all, God above Brazil!

Just like you did.

Brazil above all, God above Brazil!

And now that you're here, what can you do?

Back here, among ruins and voices in the Beira Hotel,

the boys can't believe it when I talk about you.

They believe your yellow ghost.

They believe our miraculous asses.

They believe the Lisbon girl who replaced her heart with a ruby.

But they all doubt you.

That you could exist.

How can a conman be as stupid as you are, filmmaker?

How can a conman think he can change the past

without hurting or bleeding.

Hi, my friend. You won't believe...

-Hi. -Hello.

We haven't been introduced, Luisa.

Neither have we.

This is Sebasti�o.

Sebasti�o.

Big eyes, discovering the world

BRAZIL, THE 1930s

Action!

Man!

Woman.

I've asked you so many times to let me go.

Let me follow my path. Take care of that child.

Man.

Early animal called Man.

I've come to ask you to desert.

To forget that fear you chase.

Forget the gold and the idleness.

And come back with me.

We have to do something against fear.

To challenge fear.

If you want glory, let's leave the tropics.

Let's dance in a cold and distant place,

where there's only ice and silence.

When I smoke in the silence of the jungle,

in the darkness of the jungle, it's you I think about.

The wind blowing the soot...

reminds me of your hair on summer days.

So, you filmed the pain of the past,

without realizing you were just reproducing that man's pain,

but the silence remains the same.

Not your silence.

You don't matter at all.

But the silence of images keeps chewing the past

and vomiting the same lights.

The black man tied up.

The black man bleeding.

The black man afraid of dying.

Your desire to make a film with fragments of your grandfather's memories.

The greed, the passion.

A man's severed leg.

The obsession with the idea of becoming rich,

carrying the magic corpse of a past full of pain and death.

And you, Fernando, lost in that map of locked up memories,

trying to make your cinematographic time machine work,

while your country seethed in a feverish delusion

made of amnesia and pain.

And among the smell of girls' hair,

pubes and American pop music,

our faces painted in white to speak with death,

the curious gaze of Mozambican boys,

among parts of a corpse,

your grandfather in love,

the anger of the teenager who gave you a son,

the jewels inlaid in the body of the Lusitanian girl,

the sounds of a badly-played guitar,

he was there.

And I saw you, Brazilian man.

More than any of your cameras would be able to see any landscape.

And looking at you now, one last time,

in this slow zoom out,

I don't feel anger towards you.

I feel a mocking tenderness,

which may be the only thing I learned being close to you.

To imagine hundreds of people seating in dark rooms that barely exist anymore,

just to see you behave like your country,

and to carry your son in the void of your chest,

without knowing where to go or what to do.

And, thus, to see your ghost coming back to you,

within the film that is no longer yours, but about you.

And you ask, with a lump in your white throat,

what you can do in the face of so much cruelty in the world,

in the face of a world made of so much evil.

And he answers with a whisper

and a familiar voice that has been following you since childhood,

through white teeth and skin made of gold

and memories.

What can you do, my friend?

My horse.

My yellow animal.

You can die, Fernando.

Every day,

while I devour you and devour this house,

and that film of yours,

and that crew behind the camera,

and all the people seating in all the theaters around the world

where your film is being screened.

Until all that is left is dust

and the desire to cross the darkness in the infinite space of an empty film set.

Only then, without cinema, without you,

without cameras,

without images,

and without magic bones to guide you through the endless tragedy of history,

we can all try

to start over again.

TO THE CITY OF BEIRA

TO MY FATHER TO JOAQUIM PEDRO DE ANDRADE

WITH THE SUPPORT OF

PRODUCED WITH PUBLIC FUNDS MANAGED BY THE BRAZILIAN FILM AGENCY - ANCINE

BRAZIL, PORTUGAL, MOZAMBIQUE, 2020

Translation and subtitling: Gabriela Baptista