Introduction to ‘Jaime, The Unexpected in Portuguese Cinema’
João César Monteiro, 1974
Translated by Andy Rector & Manel Sá
The following was originally published in the Spring of 1974 in the film weekly Cinéfilo. Written by filmmaker, poet, and critic João César Monteiro, the text served as an introduction to his interview with António Reis in the same issue, occasioned by the release of Jaime. It appears here for the first time online in English, in a new translation by Andy Rector and Manel Sá. With eternal thanks to them.
This text accompanies Peasants of the Cinema: António Reis & Margarida Cordeiro
Jaime (1974). Courtesy Cinemateca Portuguesa.
It all started shortly before Christmas. Fernando Lopes commissioned me to do a report on some guy who’d just finished a film called Jaime. Of course, and needless to say, I thought what any self-respecting Portuguese person would think under the circumstances: yet another punishing chore for me, and like a little, vile Tartuffe, I’d put on the pleasantries and go.
Do you know the gift of the dervishes? Me, I dwell on my own and others’ blindness, and I do not know. The gift of conjecture, that, I know. So: this guy, this poor devil, is committed to a mental asylum, they throw some tubes of paint at him and wedge some brushes between his fingers (occupational therapy, they call it), and every year, under the veiled heading of “mad art,” they exhibit his works, organize tombolas and raffle them off, which, in addition to lending the establishment some prestige and justifying the latest (shock) treatments in use, also serves to ensure that a few meager pennies go to the destitute inmates: cigarettes, uniforms, new slippers––the sweet slug and whirl of charity [doces caracóis da caridade].
So, I knew just enough about Jaime for the surprise, like in fairy tales, to be total and miraculous: a film about the “paintings” of a guy who lived in an asylum for a long time, and met his end there.
It’s clear that a subject like this can be used to say almost anything, especially for the speculations of silver-tongued dealers in the market. It’s a tough-going subject for a film of little interest; tougher still, in this succession of rarefactions, for a great film. Don’t get me wrong: a film in which rigorous ethical vigilance is never separated from constant aesthetic invention, through a ferociously maintained and disciplined balance––which is not only a kind of obstinance, but also, above all, that soaring intelligence known as poetic capacity––projects, onto the space called history, the body of its own clairvoyance, made up of a new fury and new mystery.
And what did I know about António Reis? That he’d written the dialogue for Paulo Rocha’s Mudar da vida, already made so long ago? That he’d published two (or more?) books of poetry (Poemas Quotidianos and Novos Poemas Quotidianos) that I’d never read? That he was born in Porto and lived there until quite recently, which, frankly, is no special recommendation, as Porto has already given us the filmmaker it had to give, and as if that wasn’t enough, a filmmaker who’s already honored as a cinematographic institution on a national scale?
What’s certain is, on a cold December afternoon, when I went to the Tóbis screening room, I was welcomed by one of the most candid and affable creatures on the face of this taciturn earth. But I didn’t grasp the true dimension of his qualities (and I say this with a hunch about how terrible the manifestations of their opposite must be) until after having seen the film, as if the film were the only possible and unambiguous revealer of this quite vehement and natural explosion of human greatness.
I’m talking about António Reis and the day I first met him, which by professional chance coincided with the first time I saw Jaime, for me one of the most beautiful films in the history of cinema, or, if you prefer: a decisive and original step in modern cinema, an obligatory point of passage for anyone, in this country or any other, who wants to continue the practice of a certain cinema, a cinema that only admits and recognizes its own austere and radical intransigence.
This in mind, I believe that at this moment when the dice of Portuguese cinema are being thrown, if not already played and done, the emergence of António Reis could be fundamental, as fundamental as the grafting of a new heart into an agonized patient.
In fact, in a milieu that has been more than undermined by corruption, and is almost defenseless against the filthy invasion of opportunist rats, António Reis can, on the one hand, exemplify the moral stance we must adopt as responsible filmmakers, and, on the other, may provoke a type of reflection and discussion that will make a certain Portuguese cinema more akin to genuine forms of expression, those born of a harsh conflict and capable of freeing themselves from their heavy and suffocating ideological inheritances, which, God forbid, have nothing to do with the fashionable and meaningless cliché: "We need films that talk about Portuguese reality."
It’s not easy, as we all know, but if things were not this way, paraphrasing what Reis says somewhere in the interview that follows, it’s better the bolts of lighting rain down, and if any one part gives, let it take everything with it.
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