Original subtitles

My name is Meyer. From the Tax Office.

JOB CENTER

I'm from the Tax Office. I'm Meyer.

The Master and the Giant

AMusical Comedy

A Film by Johan van der Keuken

In collaboration with Claude M�nard

Is the pain gone?

Is it still the same?

And Tahar?

Have they operated yet?

Said!

Said! Take the herd further away.

They become weightless.

I'm floating.

Normal relations are maintained.

We must take a picture of the situation.

What's your alternative?

Show us something new! - You Turkish bitch.

My wife and I were walking on the Costa Brava.

Those guys are gruesome.

Suddenly they came towards us. - As they were driving past.

They become weightless.

I was only wearing swimming trunks...

...and my wife her two-piece bathing suit.

Suddenly I'm back in that border town, in the German prison camp.

There doesn't have to be unemployment.

Those guys are gruesome.

What's your alternatlve? - There are one million unemployed.

You Turkish bitoh.

Normal relations are maintained.

Show us something new.

Suddenly I'm back in that border town, in the German prison camp...

My wife...

How will it end?

Suddenly they came towards us. - As they were driving past.

Because there are one million unemployed...

...and a million and a half foreign workers.

When they passed I looked them straight in the face.

Their eyes looked at me coldly and unfeelingly.

I had swimming trunks on. - What's your alternative?

Show us something new.

There doesn't have to be unemployment.

You damn pig.

While we are defending your freedom.

You make a sacrifice for your comrades.

Think of the others.

You make a sacrifice for your comrades.

We picked the strongest.

Think of the others.

You damn pig. You make a sacrifice.

There doesn't have to be unemployment...

...because there are one million unemployed...

...and a million and a half foreign workers.

While we defend you against the Bolsheviks!

While we defend you against the Bolsheviks!

My wife was wearing her two-piece bathing suit.

Suddenly they came towards us.

We picked the strongest.

Their eyes looked at me coldly and unfeelingly.

Suddenly I'm back in the prison camp.

What's your alternative?

We must take a picture.

Our caves are halfway up the mountain.

We walk up to the highland.

That's where the olive trees are.

We walk down to the lowland.

That's where the olive trees and the palm trees are.

The rainwater only flows down.

We build dams to collect it.

Where our dams are, that's where our trees are.

Sometimes it rains too hard... when it's God's will.

Then the dams burst and the trees are thirsty.

Hey, she's chewing the olive tree.

Go get the muzzle.

Did you open the dam? - Yes.

Were the tomatoes watered?

I picked some herbs.

Who with?

With my cousin who llves in the mountains.

Open the container.

What a life!

I created space...

...according to recognisable points.

I looked for the right framework for every location.

I painted pure, transparent spaces.

I pushed opaque surfaces away from the world...

...that was lying there.

Peacefully reflected in itself.

Mummy, you're burning me!

At 1.51 p.m. I leave the house.

I choose the odd number of minutes...

...because otherwise people mlght think minutes don't matter.

The question is: How much does a square metre cost per customer?

The proper conduct of a starving man is violence.

Craftsmanship is indispensable.

But further mechanisation is necessary.

You can't keep raising wages endlessly.

I can't bear that music myself.

But it has a posltive influence on the audience.

Fortunately these measures are accepted by the workers.

This violence is not rooted in hatred.

Though it hurts, we must increase the material difference...

...between those who work and those who do not work.

Oh well... if they like that music...

I respect the man's military achievements.

The love embedded in this violence...

...is as violent as the violence itself.

It's the well-known mythical fear of the atom bomb.

Totally irrational.

The canned laughter is clearly contagious.

As if flaunting tropical scenery could conceal spiritual poverty.

They weep crocodile tears for the poor oppressed people.

We managed to reduce thermal radiation and fallout...

...by a tenth.

We are against violence, no matter where it comes from!

As if flaunting tropical scenery could conceal spiritual poverty.

The proper conduct of a starving man is violence.

And the violence of a starving man is not primltivism.

Violence is the moment the colonizer notices...

...that the colonized people exist.

However, this violence is not rooted in hatred.

The love embedded in this violence...

...is as violent as the violence itself.

We must take a photo. - Oh, the raw ham!

The Belgian ham. The French ham.

The hotdogs of Frankfurt.

I remember...

Eau de Cologne. - Something very special...

Chicory.

The Holy Alliance.

I was just like all the others.

But there was something special.

No two things in the world are identical.

You got something from your parents.

I was just like all the others.

But there was always hope.

If you look closely...

It's all poppycock.

No two things in the world are identical.

Nothing is impossible.

I also have a right.

You couldn't see much.

You want the money, that's all.

But it was alive. A beating heart.

A breath of fresh air. Afeeling of freedom and space.

I have a right to be respected.

They must take account of me.

They must take account of me.

I was well brought up. I've been taught good manners.

Always to be pollte.

Eating with knife and fork.

Looking people straight in the face.

That's how you deal with layabouts.

Prudence...

...is what keeps your porcelain whole.

In the evening we were always very tired.

The sizzling life...

...that never stops.

In the evening...

...we were always... very tired.

Very tired.

Me just like all the others.

I make plans.

I have lots of ideas still.

Sometimes I think: I'm dreaming.

I also have a right.

Allah is great!

Are you fetching the olives?

Don't fill the basket straight away.

There are rules for everything. First you must measure.

Lower the beam.

Said...

When the trunk of the palm tree comes down...

...on the pressed ollves...

...the oil flows like its mother, the rain...

...and glitters like the sun.

Put the olives away.

Put them in the storeroom.

You're hurting her.

Keep the shears lower.

Belgassem, go wet the sickles.

The love embedded in this violence...

...is as violent as this violence itself.

How much does it cost? - Ten dinars.

Give me some more. - No, no.

The ship sets sail

and turns away from its native soil

beloved cradle

the ship goes out to sea

the ship goes out to sea

to the barren place of exile

it turns away from friends' hearts

parents are sad and pale

tears of bitterness flow

the ship sails away

its horn sounds in the fog

a shipload of young men is exported

only their passports distinguish them from cattle

When have I last been so alone?

How long have I been lying here?

How often have I counted the layers of bricks...

...of the houses across the street?

And so I lie all alone in my bed.

I put it by the balcony doors because of my bronchitis.

He who eats the feet of a chicken will become a vagrant.

The days are so similar...

...the daily actlvities so identical.

You only notice Sundays because everything is closed and you can't shop.

If you want to see green, you are red.

All joys are gone.

And ever since my wife's death I've been alone.

If you want to see black, you've got whlte hands.

Yes, my friends...

...there have been joys.

With my eight children.

They confront a man with nice as well as nasty complications.

Those that usually ocour in families.

Cripples are the best lovers.

There are days...

...when you can't think of anything to pass away the time.

So you sit on a bench along the motorway...

...to observe the ever-flowing traffic.

It passes you like a sigh, like streaks of llghtning.

The way your whole life has passed you by.

Voyager-I flew, last Monday, through the enemy Juplter system...

...which is often regarded as a miniature solar system.

The small explorer with its sensltive equipment...

...withstood intense radiation and bizarre magnetic forces.

At a distance of 280,000 km...

...it flew over our planet's multi-coloured blanket of clouds.

Its camera looked straight into the eye of a cyclone...

...that has been raging there for 300 years.

In my room I've got a large picture of the firmament.

When I look at it, which I do every day...

...I realise the reality of our lives.

Not as much as a grain of sand in the unlverse.

I'm cleaning the room, grandpa.

Maybe a few more times.

But I won't do this forever.

I want to make things.

If a girl wants to make a particular boy love her...

...she forms a human figure out of dough...

...with hair, sallva, blood and nails of the man she loves in it.

She wrltes his name on it...

...and buries it when the moon wanes.

She urinates on the spot where it is buried...

...while speaking the followlng words:

Peter, Peter, I love you.

When the likeness has decomposed...

...you will follow me, my dearest, like a cur follows a bitch.

This plant was born from honey.

We will baptize it with honey.

Then you flnd out you're stupid and can only repeat standard phrases.

And you shall be at my beck and call only.

You will come to me as I wish.

I've been here for thirteen years working at this drill.

I am sweeter than honey...

...sweeter than the sweetest candy.

I'd lost weight: Twenty pounds. I didn't want to lose my job. I was often ill.

May you long only for me...

...like a bee for a branch full of honey.

One day I fell against the oven and lost consciousness.

The guys took me outside.

I regained consciousness and threw up.

Total exhaustion, the doctor said.

I think of you, exiled brothers, in our liberation movement.

I think of you, exiled brothers, with only bitterness as earth.

I think of you who try to follow the sun.

Occupy the factory when the machines are operating...

...not when they've stopped.

Witchcraft decides the moment the ceiling caves in.

There are two dolls.

First there's the little boy.

This doll is a paragon of knowledge, skills and understanding.

He knows his left and his right hand.

He can read, has friends, gets letters and goes for walks in the woods.

He is an adult in the making.

Admittedly, in her youth she wanted to oppose negative developments.

But in doing so she left the straight and narrow path...

...and the trial hasn't shown that she means to return to it.

Then there's the little girl.

She stands in between the mother and the little boy.

She knows nothing of life and has to learn everything yet.

In her ignorance and na�vet� she opens herself to an ego...

...that belongs to all children on the way to independence.

She is happy, she is afraid...

...she sleeps, eats, and wants to learn to read.

My error was going to prison.

But their error is that they are not talking to me any more...

...and that they condemn me.

My family's verdict was that they don't want to see me again.

They punished me twice over.

If there's no one left to help you...

...you're like a five-year old child left alone in the street.

It's exactly the same.

Cripples are the best lovers.

Nobody was allowed to touch her...

...except her female relatives who brought her pre-chewed food.

She wasn't allowed to lie down, but had to lean on blocks.

Her head was covered with a cloth...

...and her face was smeared with charcoal.

The first major reform we have to discuss...

...is that of the enterprise.

I personally think that the market economy...

...has to bring about that reform.

In other words:

Enterprises that do not embrace reforms...

...will automatically fall to pieces.

This is my third Christmas in a prison cell.

But don't think it's such a tragedy.

I am tranquil and more cheerful than ever.

When I pick up a pen...

...my hand trembles.

If I try to speak...

...my voice falters.

How can I be sure it is my own word and not somebody else's?

She had to do her utmost to avoid the sunlight.

She was given a stick to soratch herself with...

...because she wasn't allowed to touch her own body.

We shall go from one crisis to the next.

We act by the grace of the crisis.

In the corner of the room a small cell was created...

...which I could make very hot or very cold from the outside.

Inside was a wooden rack to which I could handcuff him in any posltion.

I bought myself black leather boots.

Wherever I found life...

...I found the will to power.

And even in the will of the servant...

...I found the will to be master.

That the weaker should serve the stronger...

...is because its own will persuades it.

It wants to be master over what is weaker still.

Only this pleasure it cannot do without.

Every woman should be ashamed at the thought of being a woman.

Polltics has no business in the courtroom.

These were punishable offences.

This is not a polltical trial.

I smile at life in the dusk of my cell.

As if I possessed a magic secret...

...that changes what is hard and sad into clarity and happiness.

I don't know where that joy comes from.

I think that the secret is life itself.

If you think you're stronger than me, why don't you organise the world?

I shall do that.