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| Viewing 'Sombras Brancas' at CCLP, Goa. |
- Brian Mendonca
I am delighted to have been able to view Sombras Brancas (2023) - the last film of the 13th Lusophone Film Festival which was screened in Portuguese (with English subtitles) at the Camoes-Centro de Lingua Portuguesa, Panjim, this evening. Translated literally as White Shadows the oxymoron is a metaphor of the writer's life who saw only whiteness and shadows after he suffered a stroke.
Prof. Delfim Correia, Director of the Centre introduced the film based on the life of the Portuguese writer Jose Cardoso Pires (1925-1998). He is one of the three along with Jose Saramago (1922-2010) who are outstanding in this period of Portuguese literature. Prof. Delfim proudly informed the audience that the first novel by Pires has his name, i.e. O Delfim (1968).
The film directed by Fernando Vendrell sensitively dramatizes the life of the writer who suffered from what looks like Alzheimer's disease for a spell of time. He is nursed by his doting wife Edite. It was diagnosed as brain ischemia (blood clot) in 1995, which he wrote about in a memoir called De Profundis published a year before he passed on.
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| Jose with the Portuguese flag in the background. |
Pires witnessed life before and after Salazar. The carnation revolution in 1974 happened when Pires was almost 50. The exit of the dictator Salazar seemed to be the mid-point of Pires life as he lived for another 40 odd years later. Described as a 'dirty writer' by one of his readers in the movie Pires fell foul of the authorities of the Estado Novo (1926-1974) who felt that his bold writing was too lascivious for the state.
The movie brings out the tenderness between Edite and Jose. The montage of flashbacks of their younger days when they were so in love is in stark contrast to the vegetable he has now become in the hospital. It reminds one to seize the day and enjoy the company of loved ones when one can.
His grown up daughters have no time for him - or their mother. When they come to see their dad, Edite wryly observes, 'It has taken you this to come home.' When she asks if they will stay, one of them says 'I can't. It's his presence in this house.' The mother replies, 'I can't too. It's his absence.'
The film is important for its insight into the life of a writer. It may also lay claim to being a documentary, if not for the fact that it is so lyrically made. The camera follows the young Jose into all the bars of Lisbon where he gathers all his material for his writing, for that is where the hoi polloi have their say. From the pleasures of cunnilingus to how everything comes down to a circle in life, all these nuggets are free for the asking to the close band of those who frequent the bars. In this respect Pires is like the Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes. (1930-1980)
Sombras Brancas is a commentary on our lives, how fickle it is, how soon we can lose it all, and how much we rely on memory to (desperately) construct ourselves. The writer's search for a way back to himself is a compelling portrayal of struggle and doubt. All through his illness, when he is 'on the other side' fragments from his novels, the lines his characters say, come back as if in a fugue. Pires's long walks, by the sea, and the countryside help alleviate his aporia. Confronted by his mortality he asks his best friend, 'Is it hard to die?' But as a writer, he realizes, there is a reason to live.
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Pic taken by Brian Mendonca at the screening of Sombras Brancas at the Instituto Camoes, Panjim, Goa, on Sunday, 16 March 2025. Jose in a still from the film. Updated 17/3/25.
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