Original subtitles

Second Episode: The Picnic of Dreams

This story happens on the island of Madeira,

on an ordinary day.

Or rather, a very special day,

the day of the picnic of dreams.

On that far-off day, Manuel and his classmates

will take part in an unique experiment:

"the dream of the thing everyone wants."

This dream can only occur in the heart of the forest.

Not just any forest.

To build the thing they dream of, they need a very special forest.

Only one forest on the island summons dreams,

but it's in the middle of the island

beyond the volcanoes, in a former tourist zone

now overrun with rabbits and the ghosts of pirates.

Sing softly or you'll scare the birds.

Walk faster! Hurry! Walk faster! No dawdling!

We'll stop here.

For this experiment, you must come empty-handed.

No food,

no toys,

at most, a book or a notebook to feed to the rabbits.

I'll tell you why we're on this outing.

We'll attempt an experiment:

concentrating

so that we all have the very same dream.

This has been done by students of another school

who dreamed together of a sailing ship

and made it materialize in Funchal Bay.

Photos were taken of this ship which was only a dream.

A historic event that we can copy

but we'll dream of a hospital.

That's what the island needs the most for without one...

... you can't heal the sick.

Exactly!

Let's begin our experiment.

Stay close together or the thing can't happen.

Let's count.

One.

But the teacher forgot the rule of hardened dreamers:

Sleep can't be forced.

An order to sleep always keeps a dreamer wide awake.

The dreamer's good will doesn't always match the rabbit's annoyance

as so many useless dreams.

In short, Manuel fails to fall asleep in time,

and finds himself alone

among nightmare trees.

He knows that no one's dreaming of hospital, but of trees.

Each child picks his tree in the others' forest.

Only Manuel can guess whose tree is whose:

that one is Mandez Pinto's,

that, Freitas da Silva's,

this one, Goveia's.

The frightening accumulation of disorderly dreams

makes Manuel afraid of forest.

He learns that the dream forest has people in it.

Give me some, Uncle Agostino. If not, you're a thief!

Give me wine! Give me a drink!

Why hit the tree?

It's not a tree. It's my Uncle Agostino.

It's not a tree, it's a demon!

He must be hit, because I need wine.

He gives me the wine. If not, he gets hit.

Now you'll get it!

Milk? You nuts? You know I don't drink milk!

Why don't you give me wine? I want wine, Uncle!

If you give milk, you get hit. I want wine!

Water? Are you kidding me? Wine, or I'll go on hitting you!

I want wine!

Hurry up, you rascal!

That's it! You always understand when you're well beaten.

My whole family gives me wine.

My cellar's is full of it. More!

Why be beaten? Give me wine right off.

Milk, water, are not for me.

Who are you?

Me? You have the nerve to ask me who I am?

I'm nothing.

I'm free. I'm of the tree family.

The trees feed me.

So I live here with them and the little birds.

The birds are my friends too. They do as I do.

And I do as they do.

Want to hear them sing? Wait!

Sing, little birds!

You there, sing! They'll do it, you'll see.

What's the hold-up?

Sing! They'll come around to it.

Will you sing? Obey me! Here!

Here they are! Look! Hear them?

Hear them all?

I'd like to be like you.

You want to be like me? That's not hard.

Why do you want to be like me?

Have you lots of money?

Then,

just give me all you have

and you'll be like me: free, poor, but very happy,

like the birds.

Want that? Then, give.

Here's a coin...

a second,

a third,

a fourth,

a fifth,

a sixth...

coin,

and a seventh.

Let's see how much it makes.

Look!

This one is a bit yellow, like laurel.

It's worthless.

Know who this one's for?

For the rabbits. Here you are, rabbits!

This one is a little bigger.

It's worth more. It's shinier, prettier.

So we'll give it to the foxes.

Little foxes, take this!

This one is smaller, but more beautiful.

We'll give it to Uncle Joachim! Watch!

Here you are, Uncle!

For you, Joachim!

This one is pretty too. Small, very shiny.

Worth more than the first.

We'll give it to Uncle Jeremy.

Here you are, Uncle!

This one

is for Uncle Edgar. Catch!

This, for Uncle Constantino.

And this...

This is the biggest and most beautiful.

That's why we'll give it to no one. It's for me.

Look!

From where I am, I can't see you.

It was yours. Now it's mine.

You were a child, you're a man.

Fear, they say, is ageless.

Becoming an adult is priceless and should have filled him with the pride

he'd thought was the strength of adulthood.

You...

are me.

You were a boy but you're a man now.

Pleased?

I'm going now.

Mr. Ferreira called me.

I'm going to my family.

Pleased?

Come! Don't go!

Good luck! I'm returning to my friends.

Wait!

I'm coming with you!

I'm coming with you!

Who's whistling?

That you whistling, Manuel? You mustn't do that!

How can we sleep and dream if someone whistles?

Let's go. Thank your classmate for this!

Don't argue! Get up!

Intelligent! Because of one of you, we all have to leave!

Yet now,

he's filled with sad anger

and alarming fatigue in which he'll never recognize

the feeling best known to men of all ages:

fear!

What are you doing here?

What is it?

What are you doing here? You know you're not allowed in this room.

Look at me!

What's going on?

I detest being treated this way, Madam!

Don't let it happen again! - What's all this?

And I detest having to repeat myself.

The woman wants war.

Madam, for less than that,

I've cut off a lot of heads and thrown them in the sea.

So my nightmares before you were born were true!

I gave birth to a monster!

Stop!

I can't bear to see such a pretty woman cry.

It breaks my heart.

I know women's tears well.

The first tear

is salty, like sea water.

The second tear

is sweet, like my brother's smile.

The third tear

is bitter,

like the life I bear

daily on my shoulders.

That's the way it is.

I'm all alone, Mr. Gomez da Silva

alone in this business.

Struggle as I may, I'm all alone in the city.

I have no one. I speak, but no one listens.

You're exaggerating.

Not at all! Only I fight misery,

moral poverty, the lack of education, of moderation...

Folks are ignorant. What do they think of?

I know, I've seen it too.

They fish, cut bananas and drink away the evening.

Suddenly, he recalled something his father said when he was angry:

"The mightiest knight is Sir Money!

Money ruined my childhood.

Money will restore it to me.

If I find the 5 escudos coin again, my childhood will be saved.

But who would give me a 5 escudos coin?"

The people's creativity... Where is it?

What's it reduced to? To nothing!

It's true, I can't deny it.

There's no money. So, no machines, no doctors. Machines are elsewhere.

But we can have creativity...

It'll come. Takes time.

Look at this man. An example of what I mean.

Observe his face!

He typifies how low we've sunk in this country.

We'd never have seen that before.

I understand your concern, but... you exaggerate.

Mr. Gon�alves...

Father!

Father? - Mr. Gon�alves?

Perhaps we've met somewhere.

That's life!

Don't you know him? - I don't.

I've nothing to say. I know nothing.

How sad to see such things!

It doesn't anger me, it pains me!

Don't stay there! Go away!

I can't stand it! Look at his face! - It's sad.

What will he spend the money on? Books? Self-education, do you think?

He'll go to the bar and get drunk, of course.

That's life!

He'll spend it all on vice tonight. - What can you do?

The teacher will give him a 10 escudos coin.

Since nothing will happen, it means the coin is worthless.

Fernando!

That you, Fernando?

What are you doing here?

You called me? - Look! The tree!

What's this? Come down! That tree's in our garden!

Father, I'm very hungry.

Mother, give me something to eat!

Come, little birds!

Manuel understood that the man who stole his child body

had retained all his adult powers.

Mother!

Time passed faster than ever leaving Manuel, defenceless,

to his first adult night.

"No, that night must never come!

If it does, I'll never again be a child."

But, what could he do?

"I'm lost forever in a stranger's body", Manuel thought.

"Help!

Help!

Let me out, I don't want to be the man of the forest!

I'll never again want to be a grown-up!"

Just before nightfall, he heard the blind woman calling him:

"Come!

Come and rejoin your brothers."

Manuel found himself with the beggars he saw on Sunday,

at the church door.

They call him "the newcomer."

A little girl will tell him

the beggars are the eternal bodies of ex-pirates

whose souls burn bright at the bottoms of volcanoes.

We'll play cards.

We'll see who the real men are here, OK?

It's salty. It's for my son.

Aye-aye!

This passion-fruit one is for my brother.

This is bitter. It's for the newcomer.

This is tasteless. It's for me.

Now for the 2nd card, you Don Juans, lady-killers, nighthawks.

We'll see who wins.

This smells of iron. It's for my brother.

This, of coal. It must be for my son.

This, of sea-water, for the newcomer.

This, of burnt lavender, can only be for me.

Now, you adventurers, the 3rd card.

I hear the sound of crickets. It's for me.

The naval battle, for the judge.

The screams of the slain, for the judge.

Dripping blood...

for the judge.

You're too young to understand some things.

I'll explain them later, alright?

Look at this blade!

Bodies, their souls gone, house new, charitable souls

that gave their last coin

to these living jails, the bodies of beggar pirates.

To leave your eternal body,

just recover the coin you gave.

"The mightiest knight is Sir Money", Manuel thought.

See this piggy-bank?

From now on, all the money you find

you'll put it in this bank.

I'll give you a small coin every day

that you'll put in it. Your savings.

Don't spend any money.

At Christmas,

you'll break your piggy-bank

and buy what you like.

Alright?

But how to find this one coin?

He recalled that before the outing, his Dad gave him a piggy-bank

and made him keep all the money in it.

He decides to rob the piggy-bank.

Let's see if this is it.

No.

It's another one.

And this one?

You'll never find that coin.

This, perhaps?

No, not that. - Dad, a thief!

Nor this one.

You'll never find that coin!

It's not this one, either.

Dad, a thief!

A thief in the house!

What's going on?

Wait! - Go away at once!

Just a minute!

Kill him, Dad! Kill him, kill him...

Hands up! Hear me?

Think I won't shoot? I said hands up!

Not afraid? You'd better believe me!

Hands up! - Wait, I'm getting there!

Here it is! This is the one!

That's the one, but it's mine alone!

That's life, life is like that.

I'm used to losing and winning.

Never mind the threats. I'm not afraid of you.

I'm immortal.

You can't kill immortals

or threaten them with guns or knives, or cannons,

or daggers. Or anything else. I'm not afraid.

I fear nothing.

I'm a pirate, the greatest of the pirates.

I'm uncle and nephew of pirates,

son of pirates,

father of pirates.

Why should I be afraid?

Yes, I'm leaving.

I'm going back to my own world, my land,

where I've always lived, among the foxes,

among the birds, among the rabbits,

with my Uncle Agostino.

Those are my family.

That's why no gun can threaten me. I don't know what fear is.

Farewell!

Peace be with you.

I'm the son of misfortune, the slave of the multitude,

the little brother of the black earth where flowers and seeds grow.

Seeing the pirate from outside

fills him with regret.

"I should have stayed an adult forever", he thought.

But, you can't have everything,

not even for money.

I'm called "future", but my real name's more common:

my name is Manuel.

Now that your mother's gone

and I've little time to devote to you,

I've thought it over

and decided it's best

that you live with your aunt in Funchal.

You leave tomorrow.

This time I'll tell you my own story myself.

It's a story that I made up in my distant childhood

and that happens in the future.

But since I made it up when I was still a child,

I tell it in the past tense.

One day, my mother died.

Dad sent me to my aunt, in Funchal.

A Danish sailor who had lost wife, ship and money,

was assigned to take me to my aunt's house.

In those days, my aunt oversaw

one of the island's remotest museums.

We arrived near midnight. All were asleep,

or almost.

My aunt, her son and two nephews lived in the museum.

The staff had moved out because of the ghosts.

I forgot the milk!

It didn't bother me. My family's never feared ghosts.

I was given my cousin's room.

I couldn't sleep.

Before the rooster crowed, a noise woke me.

The next day, nothing happened... or almost.

There was that official visit.

Hi!

Who are you?

Your cousin.

I hate mornings.

Dear sick friends,

today is an exceptional Sunday, because it's carnival,

and we have an unique opportunity

for an unusual private visit to a Madeira celebrity.

Same chocolate as yesterday?

Dear invalid friends...

It's different. Don't you like it?

In a few moments,

you'll be pleased to hear the voice of Marylina,

the little chess champion of the world,

exclusively on Radio Serenity,

bringing joy and relief to all incurables.

Radio Serenity, voice of the desert islands.

Sick friends, you've surely guessed who I mean.

Yes. In your beds of pain and misery,

you will soon hear as if she were beside you,

the voice of Marylina, the young world chess champion.

The youngest of our island celebrities,

Marylina is only 7, my dear friends, listeners.

Yet, she embodies a triumph of Portuguese science.

She is the world-renowned work of Dr. Luis de Freitas,

the genius of artificial insemination.

For the first time ever, he achieved the double fecundation

of the ovules of two local women by two Nobel Prizewinner's sperm,

and the re-fecundation of the foetuses by each other.

All this in the belly of another local celebrity,

broad-jump champion Anna Melo Sousa

who died 4 years before completing this genetic feat,

but was kept in hibernation to permit the birth

of the girl prodigy who's just had her hair done.

Prime Minister?

Not yet.

Dear tuberculars, defectives and amputees,

this is Toninho Gon�alves of Radio Serenity,

voice of worldwide cripples, friends of the hopeless

in hospitals on every island.

Now back to Marylina.

Cancer cases who've lost faith,

she's just about ready. Her hair's nearly done.

I'm checking... Right!

But let's not wait any longer. We're going to talk to Marylina now

so she can tell us what we want to know

of her life, her tastes,

everything her listeners are impatient to hear.

Marylina, my friends, travels with her retinue

of child geniuses and her fianc�, Rock Solgadostrec,

who, a few months ago, has exchanged brains

with famed pianist Andr� Zehloo

so he could reach the little champion's mental level.

I just want to say

that I love Mr. Rock very very very much

and that they filled his head

with Mr. Zehloo's brain.

I'd like to say that I love him...

and...

as soon as the law allows, we'll be married.

What plans have you for your honeymoon?

Just three things:

study, study, study.

And you, Mr Zehloo?

I want lots of coconuts.

Remember, our young champion

is an honorary citizen of France,

Britain, Italy, Poland and Senegal.

She was adopted by the U.S. President,

and despite her amity toward USSR,

she travels with her personal guard of Marines

and a detachment of Swedish UN blue berets.

As a reporter, I'm very impressed

by the atmosphere around this charmer,

the world chess champion.

Six other children are here, her aides,

each helping our champion as he can.

I admit I'm a bit... perplexed.

I'm awaiting developments. Don't know what else to say.

I'll say a little more about our champion

if I can recall any more about her.

So, you already know, Marylina will be 8 in 3 days.

This is Toninho Gon�alves, appealing to all islands:

Azores, St. Helena, Savage, Elba, Cyprus, Juan Fernandez, Kon Tiki,

to immediately send Radio Serenity

as many clothes and fruits as possible.

Repeat: clothes and fruit for Marylina.

Radio Serenity, comforter of the suffering,

issues this vibrant appeal!

Jo�o, I told you a hundred times not to go up there.

Come down!

There were things I didn't know at the time.

I was only a child.

Gregorio, what're you doing with that pig?

Walking a pig is not a game!

Take it inside! The idea!

Got nothing else to do?

Hello! Was breakfast good?

Want to play with my children? Come!

The servant introduced me to her sons,

with whom I played stupid games.

This is Pedro, and Paulo. No, Paulo and Pedro.

This is Manuel. He'll play with you, OK?

What are you playing?

I don't get what you're doing.

Go and wash!

Who's first? - Not a chance! Not a chance!

I don't want to!

Pedro,

will you read to me tonight?

Come!

I can't sleep when it rains.

Come!

Come and read!

Grown-ups played too, conjuring the shadows of ghosts.

They called it "movies".

In my distant childhood,

the island had but 2 movie houses and TV didn't exist.

English subs transcribed & edited by: marooned2 & aloysius70, 2016