Original subtitles

ANXIETY

Kill yourself!

So you've come to see your father?

What's left of him!

Now, Dad...

Do you not feel well?

Me? I don't feel... bad or good.

Now, now... That's no way to react.

I can't help it.

What are you doing?

Trying not to forget I'm alive.

That's nothing!

We wouldn't forget you. How could we?

You already have!

You're in a mood.

You're the most famous man of your generation.

They'll forget you too.

Even you.

What about the Presidential tribute?

Moribund. Like you will be.

What more could one ask for?

I'm old and satisfied. I'm feted and praised.

I can enjoy my achievements.

Yes, but now you'll ruin everything, you'll ruin it all.

Kill yourself!

I've worked myself to death!

Kill yourself!

Come on, Dad!

Your medicine? Do you want it?

Are your legs swollen?

What is it?

It's their fault!

They take everything!

Everything disappears.

Your desk! Isn't there a key?

They've taken the key.

You lost it. Get another.

No, there's no point.

I feel more comfortable here.

But Dad! This is not yours!

You're right.

It shouldn't be mine.

I am dead!

Dead, or half-dead.

I've been slaughtered. Half-slaughtered, rather.

You too.

Even my son only half-sees me.

Come now!

My famous father!

A national treasure! A universal hero!

Yes!

But you see only my socks

and tell me to get keys made!

So what, Dad. Don't be cross.

Tell me, son. Before...

would I have got keys made?

What do you think?

Please, Dad... Forget it...

Forget it, you say...

That's what he said too.

He remembered,

green, he was, didn't know where to start.

The paper wanted stories...

For years, no one had come to me, but him, he thought too.

He called me an old fool,

me, the national hero!

He'd learned your famous Dad's theorems,

his laws,

his formulas.

- An interview, was it? - It was ages ago.

I received him well.

I stood up,

offered him a seat.

I kept standing,

and then I invited him to partake of a cup of tea.

It was cold out,

my nose was dripping,

I blew it on a napikin,

his napkin.

I handed it back.

He wouldn't touch it.

Come on, Dad...

You could've used your own.

There are tons of napkins here.

Listen, you...

You can sell yours, keep two.

Just one, rather.

I tried to apologize.

He said, forget it.

Forget it!

These things happen.

What's a slip to people like us?

Look, Dad!

It shouldn't have happened, they shouldn't see...

I've been slaughtered, half-slaughtered...

What about the other half?

It's been put back together,

it's begotten a monster.

Ok, Dad. It'll blow over.

I'm here to be congratulated.

Congratulations on being half-slaughtered?

Congratulations on failling to kill the rest of you?

Congratulations on producing a brand new pathology?

We're doctors, are we not?

We're writers, are we not?

We're famous.

We must go with dignity, mustn't we?

Listen, Dad... l feel fine.

I'm healthy and wealthy, I'm famous...

What more could I want?

- To keep it that way. - No one's preventing that.

Do it yourself.

You mean renounce all I've done?

All I've done for mankind?

You'll enjoy none of it.

You're a thief! You're stealing an idol.

We obtain timeless glory. It's worth it.

We obtain it and lose it.

That's bitter.

We'll be remembered for our work.

Generations will know our name.

Yes. And the names of birds, plants, foodstuffs...

Numbers!

That's not being admired!

It's mere knowlegde!

It happened to others.

If they died soon enough!

You did nothing! 1 did nothing.

We started many things.

Others will come after, to continue our work.

Fame comes from impressing the masses.

And what impresses them is death.

A thinker's last task, last obligation

is to die well?

Some depart at the first hint,

they do not wait to be dismissed.

They gain nothing!

They are still half-slaughtered.

I am very much alive.

Yes.

Hair grows,

nails grow,

it is now the monster is born.

No!

I have my memories.

Conferences, the Academy, applause, invitations...

I am thrown out but I need to stop...

It would be worse if you tried.

They know what they're up to.

They are half-baked.

Even memories escape the monster's lot!

Even memories, will be stolen from you.

No, Dad. Not them.

Everything, son, everything!

Kill yourself!

Listen, son, over there...

I have there a phial

of cyanide...

Cyanide!

Come with me.

We'll get it.

You'll swallow it...

A favour for your old father.

That's all. It's not much to ask.

Down it and remain alive forever.

What do you mean?

No, not that!

Not that!

You're sick!

I---

I want...

I want to live.

No, son. It's too late.

No one can live with a corpse.

- I'm still useful. - What?

After my jubilee, am I to turn incapable?

The master suddenly turns senile?

No! I won't let myself die!

I'll convince myself and you, I'll start over!

That's the trap!

The monster will grow!

Your eyes widen!

Open your eyes wide! Open your eyes and look at me!

What do you see?

Proof I fell in the trap.

I gave lectures in...

I spoke of... You know... in...

No, Dad, that was last century!

Of course it was.

Later, in the Bulletin, they said...

My theories were out of date.

Impossible! I jumped in the ring.

We are men of science, men of letters!

I must prove everything all over again.

Who knows, perhaps I shall one day.

Impossible.

There are new laws, that provoke new laws.

But I shall try!

And the worst was...

when you tried to teach me.

It wasn't those laws, no!

I'm frightened!

What if I'm asked for a talk?

Think! What if they ask me?

Calm down!

Of course they could, you're still my famous Dad!

Just say your doctor won't allow it.

That's it!

But I am a doctor!

Myself,

I'll write myself a note!

I'll announce that the monster

does not receive scholarly visitors,

nor even thank his audience!

Of course you won't! Calm down!

You're hurting! I'm concerned!

You can't. one cannot...

keep one's other half intact, till the end.

Intact, no. Neither of one's halves.

Once,

a doctor advised me always to keep a pot...

From then,

I knew my problem...

I wanted to show you...

I can't find it.

My piece hasn't come out.

I'd like you to see...

Have you seen Amzer yet?

Ramze, Dad!

Of course.

That's it!

Here...

No...

Don't bother.

Listen...

You're wrong, you say we're growing old.

But the elderly, like children, have a place.

They are respected!

See!

You're half-dead already! Charity!

- I don't mean that! - You said it though.

Come, let's get it.

- What? The journal? - No.

The cyanide!

It must be somewhere...

I've kept it for you for ages.

Let me try to remember...

And the journal too.

I've published my discovery!

When I realized the monster

was a coward,

I realized I could give it to you.

- Give me what? The phial? - Yes!

Before you divide in two!

It's a worhty inheritance,

worth, millions! Millions of years!

It means immortality!

Not at that price!

Things are worse than I thought.

The process has begun.

Read my article.

Come help me find it.

Quick! Quick!

We'll find it in my office. Quick! Quick!

Calm down, you're SO nervous.

What's that you're saying?

Quick, quick!

Help me find it!

Stop it!

You've not always been a monster.

You said it, you're an old man,

you're senile.

It's been twenty years!

More than twenty years, a whole generation!

I can still do it.

What?

What you said.

I can do everything.

Golf, travel, dinners...

Even...

- Look at women. - Yes, even that.

And only that!

Not only that!

Unlike you, I don't gaze at photos of an old flame,

our pupil, staring at us from the piano lid.

I want to live.

Live and be famous! There's time yet.

Before no, but now my time is my own.

I'm not old, not a little old man.

I'll travel.

Asia, the dark continent...

Paris, the theatre... a box with a beautiful woman.

- Then what? - Then?

- Yes, then what? - I'll do what all young people do.

So say you.

- Why is your moustache dyed? - My moustache?

Remember what they said about me?

- What? - I could win the pentathlon.

What about Marta? Little Marta?

Remember her? Of course! You keep her picture on the piano.

Your star!

She knew us in our glory days.

The prettiest girl I've ever known.

What a figure!

I'll call her.

No, no, no!

Wait!

I've found neither the article nor the phial.

We'll have a picnic, the three of us.

No, no!

What have I done?

I'm not cross with you.

It's my son.

He's fooling me and himself.

We're old,

half what we were.

But there's time yet,

if he does what he should,

if he goes at the height of his glory.

You'll be remembered too,

for having accompained our surviving halves.

Or else, he's older than I thought.

No... Age doesn't count.

You're so adorable, so sweet.

Don't get carried away! Calm down.

I am calm.

That is all age allows us.

Calm! Yes. Calm!

It takes everything else.

We've discussed all that.

You're obsessed!

I don't know what's happening, but don't get upset!

Dad hates old age,

he says we have to end it all, a magnificent ending! In glory!

What a pitty! You're both lovely,

such fun!

- Growing old is natural. - Of course it is.

- I feel fine! - Do you belive that?

Let's not discuss it.

You won't convince me, it's puerile, it's senile!

You're doing the convincing. I am not senile.

See! He doesn't knowv it!

He thinks he's young! A boy!

Don't be cruel.

He's in fine form.

I'm so fond of him.

You are a delight.

Women like you change a man's life.

Is that a compliment? Or a reproach?

Both.

You remind me of my son's mother.

She'd say the same thing.

Your love is selfish, like a mother's love.

Or a mistress.

You don't see the glory of imortality.

What better glory than this force of nature,

a nice sunny day like today,

with two fascinating men?

Enough!

Let's go home.

Do you believe women will keep you young?

That's an illusion.

You're too old for them.

Please don't insist.

Please don't insist, I'm fine, I enjoy life.

I want to live!

I ask only one thing, let's not discuss it.

Don't go yet.

Wait a while.

Just a moment.

Do you need me?

- Do me a favour? - What?

They're so careless.

I was just going, say what you want me to do.

See those curtains...

What about them?

Not those...

There, in the study...

Come and look.

See, there...

I can't help it, it makes me sick.

- They're crooked. - Crooked?

Up there, the curtain... Don't you see?

- Fetch the maids. - No!

- Maids! No! - Calm down!

I'm too old to climb on a chair

and fix the pelmet. Help me.

- Now? - Yes, now.

If you insist. Right now, I've got to go.

All right.

Immortal! Immortal!

Yes, now he's immortal.

Anyway, there's no danger.

Immortality never dies.

So... I didn't kill him.

That got them!

They wanted a monster,

arthritis annihilating everything.

Years of work.

No, my son. Your famous Dad was by your side.

I've hidden you, my son.

They won't see your mouth twist,

your eye close...

You won't stink of piss.

And me?

And me?

My other half?

It must join the other...

Wait, my son, wait...

Your famous Dad is coming.

We've seen how death brings immortality.

True, it brings eternity

but women give us life.

I agree!

She's beautiful, strange, though...

The one hiding is stranger.

You're right!

Who are they?

Courtesans probably.

Quick, they're going.

I could lose my head over you.

Imbecile!

You deserved that.

Pain is a harsh mistress that needs beating.

In silence are born

the sense required for a life of mystery.

You were mad not to come.

A friend introduced both of them.

As you weren't there,

he introduced your to the Count, a dullard,

who is not without style.

Yours, the Count's,

is called Suzanne, or Suzy to her friends.

The other, mine,

is Gaby d'Anjou.

She's perfect. Did you see her?

Her figure is Grecian.

It seems nowadays as though you're never in Oporto!

Why didn't you come?

I was a fool, saying that to her.

I find life as foolish as I am, I stay in.

You were foolish to listen to her whispering.

- Prostitutes? - Yes.

But Suzy is clever.

She took the Count for want of anything better.

And because...

Amieiro, the tailor,

dresses the Count well.

I'm dying to go to Gaby's.

We lunched alone in her room.

I don't know that I ate.

I cupped my hands and held them

to her slender feet,

to feel them tense

and rustle silk like dead leaves...

I'll call for you later.

It'll be quick and easy. I'll introduce Suzanne.

The Count is crude, you're clever...

she's clever...

- Like that, or stronger? - Perfect, Suzy!

Poor Suzy...

Stony, skipping,

they walk the evening dark,

on the pavements...

on the pavements...

Know what? This...

is a small thing.

A small thing?

Yes, a small thing.

The roses...

you brought!

I'll get a friend, a writer, to write about you.

Why?

The truth is hard to credit

and you are deliciously unlikely.

If Eca de Queiroz was alive

I'd introduce Suzy. I swear I would.

He'd make something tremendous of her, human, fascinating.

Ega?

Don't you think, how shall I say...?

It'd be superficial?

Worldly and limited.

It's you who knows, who feels...

How can I embalm Suzy's spirit?

Poor me, I have no wit.

I've spoken to Fialho.

He's seen gestures that are epigrams.

He's heard arguments worth parables.

- Is he not capable? - I don't know. He refused.

I cannot lose her.

I feel on my skin the gentle wave,

of her hair's caress,

the living touch of her fingers like exciting tongues.

- Is that the Count? - Yes, that's him!

- And Gaby? - The one with the hair.

I don't know who that is.

- Are you not interested? - No.

I take Gaby as she is. A pro.

Like Suzy.

What is she to you?

For me, no, for posterity.

They contain condensed stoicism, a heroic strain

that sits uneasily with their life as courtesans.

They are the spiritual heirs of Marcus Aurelius.

Nobble courtesans?

You're delirious!

Hardly surprising!

Gaby is sensuous,

but you hardly speak of her.

Gaby knows the tricks of love.

She is a pro in bed.

What more to ask?

A life of fornication.

For a woman, to survive in this world, is nearly always prostitution.

At first, a thirst for love illuminates,

then, in love, one finds one's lover

one's moral idol is a guttersnipe,

one's beloved, a sordid male, neither fine nor tender,

but hurtful and fierce and legalistic to boot.

Jealousy!

You've grown jealous!

And I have too.

If we go on like this...

We'll say someting foolish.

Yes.

It would be easy to go against our nature

to find signs of prostitution in our gestures,

our way of walking, of dressing.

In every social class, because no man is an island,

people crave respect...

They look to public opinion.

We live with prejudice,

which deformes, dries, annihilates...

It's like circus troupes stealing children...

Yes, that's it,

they are trained to perform, as we are to live in society.

You know...

I don't like discussing myself.

I never complain.

If I talk now,

it is to praise my life.

Midst the horror,

I enjoy days of voluptuousness,

beyond description.

I start feeling unwell,

exasperated,

fed up...

Then they arrive,

I almost die of disgust.

One comes,

then many...

They all come...

Then...

I don't know how,

a feeling of well-being comes, unbelievable enjoyment.

I like them to humiliate me.

I feel born to that.

I suffer my enjoyment

as though there was no better fate.

And so I enjoy...

I enjoy...

Like a Christian in the amphitheatre.

Yes...

The pleasure of sacrifice.

But who cares!

It is a small thing.

I've known ordinary prostitutes...

They may find it hard to adapt, but they become beasts.

They sell kisses like grocers sell rice,

lawyers eloquence

and diplomats a colony.

You, Suzy, are different.

You are made of lava, you are a person.

Prostitute or wife,

you're destined for unhappiness.

You'll always be you,

always alone.

Suzy, darling!

Poor Suzy!

Apollonian soul!

Buffeted by historically famous louts!

You have known nights of bestial orgy.

In the morning, with goose pimples you awake

to see a customer's visage.

Poor Suzy!

Don't say "Poor Suzy!"

I have wealthy lovers,

motor-cars,

dresses by the best seamstresses,

and jewels.

All I ever wanted!

And men... lots of them,

who worship you, like a goddess!

Yes!

Many!

Who adore you!

Jealous?

Who adore me, yes!

What more could I have enjoyed?

I've had it all!

Everything... Except happiness.

Happiness?

No,

I've not had that.

On winter nights, sometimes,

alone with my thoughts,

by the fireside,

I've heard the wood crackel,

and it comforts my lost soul.

The warmth of a fire,

caressing my chilly flesh

and the play of red and blue flames

captivating my fallen eyes...

Happiness...

is a small thing.

Gaby, Suzy and the others are over there.

I've seen them.

Again!

Let me have a drink!

All right, it's your life.

Funny, women don't mind staring at men

when they're with a brother, a husband or someone.

Alone, they dare not.

They feel vulnerable.

Look. Look at her.

She's pretending...

Playing innocent, like the cupids.

Yes...

Prostitutes are different.

They are demure when accompanied

and provocative if alone.

Such are the rules of the profession.

Look, they're off.

Women, wine, gambling...

That's what I call life.

And money!

Money!

Tons of money!

Believe me, my dear Count, that is what they cherish most.

Not only, not only that.

Right, my darling?

Tenderness...

A great deal of tenderness, right, my love?

Game done. No more bets.

Two... black.

No one sees her like you do.

I see Suzy as she is.

A philosophy.

Suzy's philosophy!

A posthumous book!

No one sees beyond the appearence of her,

nor as you have made her, a plaster mask silvered by moonlight,

a radiant masterpiece.

Game done. No more bets.

Seventeen, black.

Congratulations, darling.

She stomachs these idiots so stoically,

she is a heroine.

Not surprising, she's winning.

I don't mean the game.

What then?

Vice.

The other vice.

A fortune!

Luck...

Luck.

Play seventeen again.

I was going to.

Game done.

No more bets.

Seventeen, black.

12,600, against a stake of 360.

I'll take it in chips.

What luxury!

We'll be right back.

Game done. No more bets.

I thought they'd come. See that...?

The men stayed behind.

Jealous reprisals.

At least, mine is different.

You're wrong.

They're men. They're all the same.

And it's good they get jealous.

Why?

Jealousy is attractive.

It's part of our arsenal.

Desire, jealousy... It's a wonderful life!

It drives men crazy.

- Port, please. - Brandy.

What are you thinking about?

Suzy is a prostitute like any other.

More beautiful, that's all!

Prostitution is to deform, to cancel out

the individual in us

in order to captivate someone...

A boss or a master, a rich man or a superior,

or even a poor man, who makes us feel good

and obtains others' hypocritical respect.

We're all fakes in company.

- Fakes? - Yes.

All of us, as we go to work, enter an office

or a drawing-room

we become fake and conventional. We become another.

Yes, yes...

Men... all bastards!

We are mechanized, deformed!

We're walking machines...

Our heads full of trash.

What good do we do? We're stuck on an ideal

moralists call "solidarity".

How many of us remain honest in this penitentiary we call social life?

A few, because they are isolated.

A very few.

So I refuse to be mocked when I say poor Suzy

is a good person.

You're jealous. You're still fond of her.

I feel the painkilling touch of her magical fingers.

I see her professional tricks,

the sensitivity of her unconscious acting...

She's vicious...

A sad, frustrated...

poor and kind young lady.

My poor Suzy...

You've known princes, naturally,

but not a single mystic.

Fools, you live among fools.

You don't complain

or struggle.

Not once have you cried.

Let's go. It's late.

You're making no sense.

Filth!

I'll never write again. You are dead.

Wait...

Our afternoons on the river, at Leca...

Remember...

The eyes of the dead still reflect...

If I could tear them out, take them gently...

and show them once more water flowing

and sunshine...

Our boat was called Sunshine...

You'd take off your hat,

you'd lie there and say nothing.

From time to time, I'd place my mouth on yours.

I'd softly kiss your eyelids.

Your body lay abandoned, humiliated

in a raw silk dress,

like a child ashamed.

My poor Suzy,

you were so right,

you guessed,

twenty something year-old that you were,

you knew that beyond the present lay future nothingness.

You were so unhappy!

It's a small thing.

Perhaps, Suzy, because you are someone

who is never wrong.

If I was someone you did not know then, who speaks to you now...

because I remember, I do...

we spent two hours in another dimension,

two hours in one another, out of time,

my whole being lived in you,

died in you.

We were exhausted.

I cannot sleep...

How long is it since I slept?

How long since I have heard from you?

My absurd vanity refuses to believe that she's forgotten me

so I assume

with tragic perversity

that I have written mad letters to a corpse.

Curly hair...

Worn out breasts...

Back broken...

Feet exhausted.

Stony...

Skipping...

That walk the evening...

On the pavements.

Yes...

In her last letter,

she stated with simple courage

as if it was an insignificant event

that she was going to hospital for an operation.

She said, It's a small thing.

Two people in love forget to understand each other.

When desire fades, they become strangers.

Then, in despair, they say:

"One of us has changed, we are not the same.”

I know. She is dead.

In your mind, she is not the same.

No...

Now my mistress is the pain I feel.

Poor Suzy!

She lived life's comedy through and through!

Which is why you mustn't say "Poor Suzy!"

Have you never heard of "The Mother of a River"?

No.

What's it to do with Suzy's death?

There's a connection and yet none at all!

Life is a mystery. Which solves everything in the end.

Thus, is it true that you are writing...

That you write letters to a dead woman?

A mysterious force guides your hand...

"The Mother of a River" is about that enigma.

The river is life's mystery.

Life?

You're right.

It is in death's silence

that we sense mystery stirring.

It is a small thing.

Yes...

Artists say...

I'm a diplomat.

Precisely, a diplomat who writes.

A detail may mean as much to me as life itself to others.

In Antiquity, people thought

the Earth was square and bounded by a river of fire.

There were no birds no plants.

Water filled the air like iron-coloured fog.

The winds had not yet scattered it to the Earth's sharp corners.

Where was the tiny, black-bellied fish?

The lovely, green-scaled snake?

Yes.

Where...?

After all, you are the one talking like an artist.

I don't speak for myself.

These are the words from whom invented the story.

Go on.

It goes like this.

There was neither wheat nor human hand

neither sleep nor pain which was the second cry of Creation.

Though the fields were empty, the sun cold,

time is there giving us wisdom and strength.

The only solitude that counts is that without past.

The Mother of the River was not extraordinary.

She tied up her hair with a leather thong.

Her feet had trodden only spring grass.

She kept the river that sprang in the cave.

She'd lived there a thousand years, always awake.

She saw the crows rise when she spoke.

They've taken

My clothes...

I cannot sing any longer

as when I drank the juice of strawberry-tree fruit

and my feet

no longer sense the Earth murmuring.

They no longer hear.

The villagers have forgotten me

and the new generation is unknown to me.

They're all the same...

All the same!

In the village lived a girl named Fisa or Fisalina.

She was a passionate soul...

inclined fto dream, to inexplicable sadness.

She mortified herself,

though she was a simple soul.

Her imagination tormented her.

She thought ill of all creatures.

She dreamt of marble-lipped beings mouthing unknown words.

Why was she thus?

When are you coming back?

I don't know, Fisalina.

Your village is miles away.

This village is a heap of stone. One is lost here, one cannot leave.

One day,

I saw a flight of crows, black, noisy birds.

So black and loud!

Once, at a funeral, old men carried lanterns in bright daylight.

Are they all old in your village?

When are you coming back?

Your vilage is miles away.

You know... I'd love to take you away.

She knew no girl ever left

or married outside the village.

She wanted to disobey the custom.

Her soul yearned for transgression.

Even lo transgress unsuspected laws.

She thought of a means of exile.

Fisalina!

Coming, Father!

She felt angry, love quickened her breathing.

She knew not if her lover spelt freedom for her.

Or if she had chosen him out of cunning.

Fisalina, want some?

Have a bit. We picked them. They're washed.

And full of juice.

Don't you want any?

No, Father. I don't feel like eating.

You called her yet she refuses.

She's sacrificing herself.

Has anyone ever seen such a thing?

She's whimsical. Full of whims.

Children played with bare bones. People were hungry.

But they did not fight nor panic nor start thinking.

Hunger was shared out,

even love was shared out haphazardly, ungenerously.

She decided to visit the Mother of the River.

Men were vulgar, they wanted to forget their history.

Only funerals seemed true,

as they passed streets of dirty houses

like tombs for the living.

To Fisalina, the village was monstrous.

No one had told her what the Mother of the River was like.

Why have you come?

Come closer.

Sit properly.

"First, there was Chaos.

"Then the broad-hipped Earth,

"forever a solid foundation to sustain living things.

"From Chaos was born Darkness and Black Night.

"From Night, in turn, came Ether and Light of Day.

"And the Eath gave birth to an equal,

"that cover it entirely,

"a starry Sky for blessed Gods

forever a solid foundation."

Hesoid, "Theogonis".

I speak with today's pronounciation.

The old was lost centuries ago.

Everyone's forgotten it, even me.

I cannot sing as I used to

when I drank the juice of strawberry-tree fruit.

My feet no longer hear the earth murmuring.

The villages have forgotten me.

I do not know the new generation.

The children...

The children...

are all the same.

You, what do you want from me?

Speak. Do not fear. What will you say?

I have much to say, deep water.

Speak.

I've always lived in the village,

for nearly twenty years.

The streets pursue me and close before me.

They've grown like a stone harvest.

And I cannot leave.

The walls have gone up,

the joins are tighter and tighter.

How can I breathe

if I cannot escape my chest?

Or live without end with earth beneath my feet?

Listen, belly of a river.

I wish to walk, I do not move.

Curse me, but set me free.

The sun is made of fire and salt.

Of fire and salt.

To be free, quench the fire, scatter the salt

and forego the world.

How I'd like to forget!

Who are you? Why are you here?

I have seen no one for ages.

I know nothing of people.

I have nothing to do with them.

Guardians of truth are not immortal.

They must be replaced.

Of course...

I was born in the village nearby.

I love a boy with pretty teeth.

I tremble when he takes my waist.

I do not know how to marry him.

It's never been done. Never been done.

I know all that.

When I was your age,

I liked to lie naked on the ground

to hear the ants whisper

as they rustled in the new blades.

The earth smelled fine.

Toads hid in marsh mud.

In summer or autumn,

I fill my apron with white stones

to guard my square beds of gentian.

But the hail took them away.

It does not matter...

I don't like flowers for long.

Deep water!

Why am I always sad?

Even when I have meat,

even when calmly I watch birds peck my sun-warned feet,

I feel desperate,

I feel a deathly tenderness

for all living things.

Is this love?

My lover's presence brings no calm.

Tell me how to leave the village,

how to run off with the old ringer's son.

My mouth speaks only lies.

Deep water!

Uncover my heart.

Me, I cannot.

Come.

They slid over light ash soil

and into a terrible maze.

The sun was invisible.

The light came off rough walls.

They took away

My clothes

And covered me

In a purple tunic...

Stop!

Look at the ground.

Fisalina was filled with extraordinary joy.

Her laughter filled the cave.

It burbled, multiplied, like tinkling bells.

She thought "How strong I am”.

Can I make ball of earth larger than the moon,

and throw it up into space with trees and animals?

A little boy waits outside

in a village that is not mine

and I cannot belong to him.

He's only a little boy,

an old bell-ringer's son.

What a shame.

If he were a King, If he were a Ship's Captain,

an effigy lying in a chapel after death,

with a cross and an iron crown on his chest,

then my refusal would seem fine.

You are strong, Fisalina.

Love inspires you with destruction, with calamity.

But it is true, Mother of a River?

Have you set me free?

She remembered Hesiod's poem that the Mother of a River had read,

using today's pronounciation, for Ancient Greek is lost.

She had said:

Everyone has forgotten it, even I have forgotten it.

The poem went like this:

"First, there was Chaos. Then came the Earth,

"With its broad hips and a form unknown.

"From Chaos was born Darkness and Black Night.

"Then Night was made fertile by the Darkness,

it carried Ether and Light and gave birth to them.

"And the Earth gave birth to a equal,

"the Starry sky, that could cover the Universe entirely.”

Fisalina looked up at the skylight

and a strange sensation filled her body.

She sensed a complicity

between her golden fingers and the stars in the sky.

What is that?

A glove to eat with...?

I've hurt myself.

It's so I don't hurt myself when I touch something.

Fisalina became fearful.

She kept to herself and jumped

if she was seen drawing on the ground with a straw.

She hid her hand when she saw her boyfriend.

He found her so odd, he got cross then softened

believing she was scared of losing him.

Fisalina!

What's wrong? Why are you like this?

It's nothing...

It's nothing...

It'll all be fine, Fisalina...

We'll find a way to get married.

But don't cry, don't cry...

With her golden fingers,

what could she expect?

If people found out, what would happen?

Fisalina!

I must go...

She loved to gaze at the golden tips of her fingers,

at the burnish,

the perfection and polish of her round nails.

She blushed and thought of strange things, new to her.

She had lost her frantic urge to escape the village.

Twice, she failed to turn up to see her boyfriend.

She felt fine.

What's wrong?

Fisalina...

You've not been back to the fields!

I waited by the chestnut tree.

You ran away last time, for no reason. Why?

You've grown odd, Fisalina.

Don't you love me anymore?

The rain has erased our footprints.

The wind has carried our sighs to the moon...

- Go away. - I'm here now.

Your father was a bell-ringer, wasn't he?

Yes.

Sometimes, he'd ask me for help.

When he died,

I climbed the tower, heartbroken,

and rang the bells as hard as I could.

In my village, there's a watertank too.

When I look deep down I see the water glint.

I call your name and the echo repeats it...

Fisalina! Fisalina!

Fisalina laughed to herself,

a feeble, lonely sentiment in her soul.

But you don't love me!

Go away.

You hide from me.

Winter passed.

The mountain came o life.

Ranks of crows rose up in the new fields.

The village got ready for the Dead Christ procession.

Her fingers are golden! The witch!

What's happened to you? What have they done to you?

Witch! She's a witch!

Witch! Witch!

Witch! Witch!

The guardians of the human spirit need replacing too.

And the waters of wisdom will be inhabited by new masters.

Fisalina!

I have lost you!

Fisalina, reckless, fated,

has chosen to live beside the deep water

where she will wait a thousand years

before swapping lives with someone else.

The people of Alvite, the ancient village of Alveus, still exist.

But the story is forgotten.

The women, however,

still wear in winter gloves that leave the finger-tips uncovered.

They say they feel freer and can spin their wool.

Is it not rather they fear golden fingers,

that they are weary?

It is a small thing.

Poor Fisalina!

Poor Suzy!

Subtitles: PAULO MONTES