The Portuguese Woman (2018) - full transcript

Under the linden-tree upon the heath,

There I lay with him.

When you go there, you’ll see

Broken flowers,

trampled grasses.

Broken flowers

trampled grasses.

By the forest

in the dale,

Tandarady!

Sweetly sang the nightingale.

I strolled unto the green

My lover true was waiting there

impatiently.

Such welcome ne’er was seen

— Heaven's Queen!

My heart still throbs in ecstasy.

Kisses?

Thousands - more - he took.

See, how red my lips look!

And the birdie on the tree.

Tandarady!

May that ever silent be!

THE PORTUGUESE WOMAN

Finally, a section of the nobility

has risen up against the bishop!

It's come at a good time.

We have good weather for the departure,

Ferrant.

Tomorrow we'll hunt the wolves

to keep them away

I need to hunt, run, kill.

One year's honeymoon is too long.

– You think they've forgotten me in Trent?

– Impossible!

They call you the Lord of Chains.

And not for nothing.

For taking many of the bishop's men

prisoners.

I treat them with mercy,

it's the law of war.

When manpower's needed for

working the land,

or baking bread.

How long this year away from home

has been!

The wedding feast was splendid!

But the town, Renart, so hot and dusty!

It felt like the sea came in our room

and wet our feet.

Enough water to make you drunk.

There were over five hundred ships

at sea,

laden with wine and salt,

or so I've heard.

A place of traders,

where wealth, not blood, determines rank.

Servants.

The Von Ketten belong to no one.

War is our homeland.

There it is. Let's attack Trent

by surprise.

There's a certain cowardice in surprise.

The weak attack by surprise,

the strong fight face to face.

But fragility...

Without it we'd have no servants,

nor friends,

nor loves.

The retinue of Von Ketten,

"Lord of Chains",

entering Italy by the Brenner Pass.

Lady Von Ketten gives birth

to her first child

during the year of their

honeymoon journey,

after their wedding in Portugal.

So many pearls!

I could crush them like peas.

It's only a rich woman.

I bring bad news. Or good...

depending on how you see things.

I have good news too.

Your son,

faultless and with blue eyes like yours.

Ah, yes. The child!

The bishop of Trent will soon

be defeated.

They need me.

I needed you too, for this.

How proud she is!

You weren't the only one to do

what had to be done.

My Lady,

I counsel you to turn back.

The way back is better

than the path that lies ahead.

I will not turn back!

That would be to show the way

to the devil.

Tomorrow,

I'll get up early and ride on horseback.

Your motherly ways will come,

my Lady.

Better...

to ride with the child in the litter.

There is the castle.

It's nothing but a hen-coop perched

on a hilltop.

Sometimes the foxes make a mistake

and look up there hopefully...

It's my home now.

Aren't you disappointed?

No!

When there's peace it will be rebuilt.

Peace?

We haven't had peace for hundreds

of years, my Lady.

I lost many wars, sued for peace

many times,

only for war to begin again.

My father and my grandfather

before him

knew how to wait.

And I've waited too.

When you wait for a long time,

something that only rarely happens

may happen.

Go straight back to Portugal!

This is going to be a hard struggle.

It may take years and the outcome

is uncertain.

– I insist...

– Excessive love, my Lord,

does not live in the realm of reason.

The legacy that weighs on you

will one day be mine.

I'll know how to wait, too.

The bishop of Trent will die.

I do not wish him dead.

The enemy is a sacred value.

Who makes our arm strong and

our heads cool?

– Who do we dream of, if not the enemy?

– I thought you dreamed of me!

Of the love I have for you.

You've been living with me for a year,

woman.

I've been living with war for centuries.

My love for it is greater.

Careful with the carpets!

The chaplain, to tend to your spirit,

the maestro...

for the music you love so well,

the scribe for reading,

a sprightly lady in waiting,

a cook I sent for from far away

to quench your longing for your

country's cooking,

and all the other staff

at your service.

Only I will stay away.

My Lady! This way.

Look after everything!

I'll be leaving in two days.

Arma virumque cano.

I sing Man and War!

Pray, people under tyranny,

for your lords are so weak.

Tell them to come and get me dressed!

The days last weeks here.

And the weeks last months,

and the months last seasons.

Pray, lovers,

who would serve love jubilantly,

For war rudely claims

the attention you’d rather lavish on

your ladies

and sours their desires.

And when victory is in your grasp

a foreign hand wrests it from you.

Pray for peace,

the true treasure of joy.

Get them to make this child vomit!

And look around for another

wet nurse!

What animals do the hills conceal?

Deer, boar,

wolves

and, who knows, unicorns.

Unknown caverns shelter the dragon,

or so they say.

The hills are as deep as endless weeks.

As a boy, the Lord insisted

he should climb this bluff one day.

And up there?

Up there...

live the mountain goats and eagles.

The peaks of the mountains are

the realm of the spirits.

That's where the demons live

with the storms and clouds.

We'll go there one day.

This one's good.

This will burn.

Look...

Not this one!

Who's she?

A Christian has never ventured there,

but if he dared,

things would happen

that girls on winter nights

whisper about...

And the men?

Are they loudly silent?

Such a long way just for this...

This is my last day here.

I'm sorry you're leaving.

But this is no place for a young woman.

There's nowhere to go

to meet a husband

and all that awaits is sadness

and solitude.

You must go back.

You should go back too.

You remember the sea?

The sea and everything...

This is the queen's room.

We shouldn't be in here.

What ugly birds in such a pretty room!

What birds are those?

They're magpies, my sister.

And they're talking.

What are they saying?

They're saying: «It was for the best...»

It was for the best...

The queen wanted it to be painted like this

and they did as they were told.

What does it mean?

It means,

as the court says:

the king kissed a lady in this place

and the queen came in as he was

kissing the lady.

To justify his behaviour he said:

«It was for the best...»

Did the queen believe him?

Oh! Fury and cold jealousy of a

red-headed woman!

She wanted this ceiling to be painted

with magpies saying:

«It was for the best».

When you love a man

will you be so vengeful?

I'd teach a crow to peck his eyes out,

like they do with hanging victims.

And he'd look at these woods,

the morning sun and the sea

with no eyes to see them.

I found this song,

and wanted to learn it alone...

It was very good.

You aren't paid to lie.

Go and play on the terrace

while it's sunny!

When Lord Ketten returns,

I will play this song for him.

Two days after we got here

he was back in the saddle again.

And seven years later, he still is.

It was a song Lord Ketten's mother

was very fond of.

I'll find another that doesn't bring back

memories.

My Lady, may I retire?

– Work is...

– Between work and war you must choose!

Both serve to sidetrack human ire.

Let the scribe come for my reading.

It's covered in blood...

He's my son and he's never seen the sea.

Here you are, a wolf cub,

just like you wanted.

Is this the animal that scares you so?

It's merely one of God's creatures.

He has eyes of fire,

eyes made for night.

He seems tame.

Appearances can be weapons.

Where had you left off in your reading?

Ah! King Arthur...

«Only a fool wants what he...

They say when a wolf

sneaks in to snatch a hen

and gives a false step, making a noise

it bites its paw in punishment for

its error.

– What do you know, girl?

– King Arthur...

«Only a fool wants what he can't have»,

said the King Arthur...

I've been wanting to come

for a long time.

Ah! Antonie.

Ever since I married your

husband's brother.

He used to say to me:

«The journey is hard

and you are weak».

Then he died.

I was fearful of what I'd encounter,

I'd heard so many things.

I fear for you and your son.

What I see is a thousand times worse

than I ever imagined.

You are so young.

So young, for what?

For this tomb.

Back home, I grew tired of the sea.

I longed for a land full of

unexpected things.

Tense as a bow!

When I arrived, all I saw was

an ugly place.

The Von Ketten are like steel or

heady wine,

horses or freshwater springs.

That's their spirit.

Cruel

as knives that cut deep

in a single slash.

I never saw them red with anger or

rosy-cheeked with joy.

In the garden of my parents' house

there were trees that looked

like glass,

like spiders' houses.

Summer lasted long enough to

ripen the fruit.

There was an enormous camphor tree...

But now I'm here, this is my place.

What do you see in it?

Stones on top of rocks,

the smallest pebble's the size of

your head.

Walls streaked with mold,

rotten wood.

I see the world

without the eyes of the world.

I think you deserve better.

Deserve!

Deserve...

What does it mean, deserving or

not deserving?

There are times

when a kind of frozen varnish

separates us from everything

and everyone.

I too was married with a Von Ketten.

«Delle Catene», as they're known

in Mantua.

I lived alone.

I grew old alone.

I'm a widow and far from home.

No doubt I would die here.

You can die anywhere.

Living anywhere, now that's

another question.

How can you stand this place?

The way this place stands me.

We'll spend the night here!

It would be more prudent to return home.

Three or four days

to get your strength back.

A weary man should never retire.

Years and years on horseback.

From the palaces of the nobility to

the camps and back again.

Hundreds of skirmishes...

Causing the occasional bloody

re-encounter

to feed your companions' lust

for violence.

Lancers running wild,

manly laughter,

torchlight,

forest, the smell of rain,

strutting horsemen,

women with hoisted skirts

and terrified peasants,

these were the distractions all through

these years.

Pitch the tents!

Give the men a little extra for supper.

I'll send for a doctor.

He would arrive too late.

There's no time for wounds to heal.

Give a day of your life,

you give a hundred years.

I'll leave early.

We have to prepare another attack.

The enemy is weakening too.

If we don't close ranks

before the episcopal forces fall on us,

then everything will be

irremediably lost.

I'll go home when it's time.

She'd almost make me lose the war.

She opened

as quietly as a rose,

full of life as she is,

ready for departure

on the steps of the church,

on top of the rock

where she jumped onto the horse

that would carry her off.

You'll always be a stranger...

A chaplain's life is blessed.

It encourages sloth in the peace of God.

I don't envy him his fate!

When someone dies,

he has to say a thousand masses

for their soul...

«The devil makes work for ideal hands!»

What devil?

Lord Von Ketten is wounded,

the peasants say.

Light your hearth-fires!

Lord Von Ketten is arriving!

Go! Tell his Lady that Lord Von Ketten

has arrived!

Don't bother, I'll go!

Have a roast prepared.

Man is fire,

woman is tow,

the devil arrives

and fans the flames.

Pink has a strange effect on men.

It leaves them serene

like they've just taken a hot bath.

Bring me the other dress.

It seems a hundred years have passed

Since my love departed from me!

In time it must be fifteen days,

To me it seems a hundred years!

Time torments me so,

For since his departure

It seems he is one hundred years old!

From my palate to my heart.

It sounds infinitely foolish!

It's a funny expression:

«Infinitely foolish»!

Let me clean your wound.

That at least.

That noise all day long!

It's the woodmen

cutting the forest down.

Lord Von Ketten gave orders.

I know.

He needs money for the war.

Always war!

Now he's taking poor children with him.

To die.

You better go inside, it's getting cold.

No.

The air is sharp and cold here,

I'm used to it now.

After all these years I'm used to it.

I hear the bears grunt

and the wolves howl.

The wolf already plays with the dogs

as if he were one of them.

One day he’ll gobble them up.

Nobody asked you anything.

Let her speak her language.

No one braids hair better

than she does.

Time will pass.

All will fade.

History will flow on.

We will be gone.

Tell the Lady

that Dom Pero Lobato has arrived,

a relative from Portugal.

Dom Pero Lobato,

the Lady bids you enter.

Please come with me.

Are you praying, cousin?

No. I'm not praying.

Why are you doing that, then?

I don't know.

If I took up a duster

and cleaned away the dust, it would

create the same effect

So you're a student in Bologna!

That indeed creates its effect!

I wouldn't say the same for that beard...

You used to have more sense, cousin.

Tell me,

what news do you bring of Portugal?

So much sky, so much sea

but no blue like this.

This is darker than the shadow itself.

See? It's still daylight up here.

Do you come here often?

Not much. Nothing changes.

Moss always smells the same.

Here or in Sintra it makes

no difference.

You see that woman down there?

Bent and sad like a wet dove.

Her son died. He was dull

and crippled.

God marked and then remarked him.

They say she went to bed with her son,

even when he was a grown man.

So what? – she used to say –

If it isn't me,

what woman will go to bed with

the wretch?

Lord Von Ketten is on his way here.

The war is over.

Does that mean it's all over for the

Bishop of Trent, too?

His Eminence yielded up his soul

to the Lord.

It's the first time that sneak ever gave

anything away.

I know they call me a heretic.

And a witch,

and a wicked foreigner.

They say I like cats

which have a pact with the demon

Cats have the souls of philosophers.

That's all it is.

The devil's no philosopher,

for he envies God and creation.

Keep a light burning in the gateway.

It's been a long evening.

Three times the candles were changed.

Is it you, Lord Von Ketten?

What's left of me.

On our way back a bug bit

my lord's hand.

We didn't see

whether it was a fly or a bee.

His hand swelled up

and the swelling spread.

He keeps fainting

and can hardly talk.

We have to treat him!

Poor Lord Von Ketten!

He's not looking himself at all.

His eyes are different.

They were as blue as the sea

and now they're like the sea,

but they aren't blue.

His eyes are different.

They were as blue as the sea

and now they're like the sea,

but they aren't blue.

Is it your husband, cousin?

What's left of him.

In other times,

he’d have searched

high and low

for way to purge the poison

or scorch it in wine.

I'm leaving, cousin.

I've been here two months now

with my horsemen.

It's time to leave for Bologna.

You're too young to be a graduate.

And too old to be a student.

But I must go.

I promised my father I'd be as famous as

Master João das Regras.

I can’t bear your leaving.

You're taking my Portuguese sun

and sea with you.

Console me for I’m sad.

I had a horrible and consoling thought.

What thought?

If my husband dies

I'll go back to my homeland.

I'll go back poor,

I'll leave my children,

I'll take my retinue of Moorish slave girls

and nothing else.

– Some disapprove of Moorish slave girls.

– They're Christian Moors.

They're witches.

Oh, Pero Lobato, no!

Don't believe everything they tell you.

They're unfortunate girls, whose families

were killed

and their pet mares too.

They're more noble than we are.

We're just nobles of the gown.

You hear that?

Creditors.

People who come every day to ask for

the money we owe them.

Greedy usurers with two wisps of

hair on their chins.

You are in debt?

War is made of debt.

Look at this castle...

It's like a dovecot.

The Arras tapestry, the table porcelain,

all in a pitiful state.

The Von Ketten used to be rich.

They seized parish churches and land,

and that led to war

with the cardinal of Trent, who had

two dioceses

the Von Ketten wanted for themselves.

Let's not talk of that.

Tell me of Lisbon!

– Of ‘Sobre-Ventos’.

– Of ‘Cheira-Ventos’.

My father's estate. Have you forgotten?

I try to forget.

Stay a while longer.

Until Lord Von Ketten gets better.

Or dies.

Has he received the last rites?

He refused.

Is he an atheist, Lord Von Ketten?

I heard it from the Bishop of Trent.

There's a love affair behind all this.

Politics is an affair of resentments.

They never made peace.

Did you notice they never gave the

kiss of friendship

when they signed the Peace of Trent?

I noticed.

Who is that young man who lives in the

castle?

He certainly isn't what you'd call a

"dusty feet", a tradesman.

He's very close to the Portuguese woman.

She's an arrogant woman,

this Portuguese.

People in Portugal are arrogant.

The bishops are arrogant

and the women are arrogant.

They grow rich from usury.

They grow rich!

I saw them...

Peace...

Is our Lord speaking?

He's speaking to death.

Little pest! Get out of here.

The vinegar, my Lady.

Signore di Bergamo!

You're painting a virgin not a

Venetian whore.

You made her look too intelligent.

A virgin can't be intelligent.

More candour,

and awe of mystery.

What mystery, Excellency?

There's only one mystery.

The barons!

The bishop must not receive them.

Who let them in?

I did!

I called them to sign the

treaty of peace.

Are you the Lord of Chains?

I thought you were younger.

Your Eminence...

They tell me your wife is an heretic.

Forgive my slip in diplomacy.

But not the information I have from

my heretic-hunters.

Be calm,

at the bottom of a great soul

there's always room for a heretic.

The Council will decide these things.

I will have no voice at the Council,

when it happens.

I summoned you, my lords,

to bring about peace on earth.

The affairs of heaven are not my concern.

Signore di Bergamo,

be careful with muted colours.

We don't want dead colours.

Eminence.

He is with God now.

He had an attack.

He was delirious.

He said the horsemen of the Apocalypse

were descending the hills of Trent.

I saw them!

They didn't scare me.

Are you afraid of the four horsemen?

Death, Plague,

Famine and War?

They are your children.

To them you will leave your wealth,

your castles

and women.

My lords, the peace is signed.

The kiss of peace, my lords.

Come here, Lord of Chains.

You know what you've signed here?

Do you believe in Purgatory?

Peace, Excellency,

Most reverend Eminence.

You know what peace is?

The conduit of corruption and vice.

I heard that many years ago in Bologna.

I hope you are worthy of this

inheritance.

Go, Lord of Chains!

Peace awaits you.

To take you to hell.

Do you believe in Hell?

I do.

Do you believe in Purgatory?

Yes, I do.

And indulgences,

and trans-substantiation?

No. Quiet, Traitor!

Traitor a thousand times over.

Man of war.

I too am a man of war.

All men are men of war.

You'll see for yourself,

Lord of Chains,

peace is far worse.

Where is Renart?

He died.

Where is Ferrant?

They found him dead.

The wolves had eaten half of him.

He looked no fairer than Lord Renart

with hands as white as silver.

I know. I saw him.

What did the bishop tell you?

That one won't die repentant.

The way he was looking at our Lady!

Is she his new lover or what?

She's his last lover.

He had her portrait painted as the

Virgin Mary.

It's a form of farewell: to honour what

he'd dishonored.

He is a great man, I must say.

A great dead man.

Which is much less than a worthless

living man.

The night looks bad for the journey.

And my cape is torn.

Oh, the little cat...

The creature has scabies.

How didn't I notice that?

It will have to be killed soon...

If it gets worse, take it back to

the peasants.

Wasn't that where the cat came from?

Give them bread, milk

and a little money.

And the birdie on the tree.

Tandarady!

May that ever silent be!

Mark the spot my head once lay.

All our pastime fair...

Ah, none, none,

none shall know, but he and I.

Tandarady!

Bring me my weapon!

Bring me my weapon!

The wolf!

I want his pelt drying in the sun

this afternoon.

And then I want it in my cape.

I want to look like a banker of Arras.

I'm not a soldier any more.

Is the student still here?

I saw him a little while ago, my Lord.

Was he alone?

He was alone, my Lord.

There he is,

white as chalk.

I'll have a cap made from

the wolf's pelt

and at night

I'll come and suck your blood.

I strolled unto the green

By the roses...

you may see...

Tandarady!

Mark the spot my head once lay.

How he caressed me there...

I strolled unto the green,

My lover true was waiting impatiently.

Such welcome ne’er was seen:

– Heaven's Queen!

There he had fashioned for luxury

a bed from every kind of flower.

My God!

Your head has shrunk!

My God!

Maybe I had my hair cut too short.

The cap must have stretched.

But how can it have stretched,

if it's new?

Maybe it's been deprived the company

of the soldiers.

You're much better.

Soon you'll go hunting.

The woods are empty.

There's nothing to hunt.

The boars ravage the seed beds,

the foxes invade the hen-coops

in broad daylight.

That isn't game,

it's scavengers.

You're very weak,

it's from your illness.

It's peace that's an illness. That's what

the Bishop told me.

What did the Bishop of Trent tell you?

That peace brings corruption

and vanity.

He told you that?

I'm surprised he ever got to be a bishop.

He heard it in Bologna, from some

scholar or other.

Who never became a bishop,

that's for sure.

He certainly didn't.

You were my healer.

Your herbs cured me.

It will be like it was before.

I'll regain my strength and you'll have

children.

One year of love wasn't much.

Eleven years of war were

much less for you.

Eleven years!

There will be other wars.

I must recover.

The days are so calm,

you no longer hear the woodmen

chopping down trees.

I'll leave you now,

you have company.

Ah, it's you, father.

I was sitting here thinking of the

fragility of women.

It's a form of magic resistance,

fragility.

I owe my two children to her fragility.

The Signore di Bergamo should be here

to paint you.

Men become gallant when they're in love.

In love with something other than women.

How do you mean? I love you.

Sincerely.

Be it unto me according to thy will.

You are a heretic! Woman of Portugal.

In my downcast mood,

the only way out is for a miracle

to happen

for any other way, nothing will happen.

You will only be cured

if you carry an undertaking through

to completion.

What kind of undertaking?

I'm unable to say.

You can't order destiny to speak

when it would rather remain silent.

We still need the cat!

Isn't Pero Lobato in the castle?

He didn't sleep here last night.

He left with his men early this morning

and took two dogs from the kennels.

Two dogs?

Wolf cubs,

they say.

What use are wolves in Bologna?

Perhaps they study law,

as there's no forest for them.

Call my cook.

I want to know what's for supper.

Peace with peace.

A table knife's as good as a sword.

Does no one guard your door, my Lady?

There is no one to look after my cares.

You look pale, still.

You're covered in sweat, Herr Ketten.

I'll eat

and drink my fill

and soon gain some colour.

Let's hope your feasting doesn't kill you

after escaping battles and

the stings of the flies.

Is that a joke?

No,

it's only blasphemy,

if you will.

We're all alone in this house.

Not the wolf,

not the cat,

not the student...

Who were they?

Can you tell me who they were,

woman of Portugal?

I don't know.

But if God took human form,

he could also take the form of a wolf,

or a cat,

or my cousin Lobato who's on his way

to Bologna.

If it wasn't for the thickness of

these walls,

if I didn't know there was no one

to hear us,

I would silence you.

Or maybe kill you, woman of Portugal.

You and your heresy...

You and your fragility!

Pray, you princes with your titles,

Kings, dukes, counts, barons, nobles all,

Gentlemen with horses,

For evil people trample down the gentle,

And all your wealth is in their hands...

Photography

Sound

Music

Production Director

Direction

translation MARK AYTON