13
NIGHTENDER 2020, PT, 28 min
a film by Flávio Gonçalves
A restless young man with his head in the clouds finishes another shift behind the counter of a cruising bar. He takes the longest path on his way back home. He faces the night and its hidden shadows willing to be discovered – before morning comes, unfolding what he cannot escape from.
A restless young man with his head in the clouds finishes another shift behind the counter of a cruising bar. He takes the longest path on his way back home. He faces the night and its hidden shadows willing to be discovered – before morning comes, unfolding what he cannot escape from.
“A catastrophe is the first verse of a love poem.”
Rilke
Rilke
Dear P...,
I asked the night gardener about you, but he said he didn't know you. I ignore if you continue to turn the night into day. Since the last time we kissed, I've only seen you in my head. I never got to Coimbra and had to sell the car to use it. Believe it or not, today I no longer use it… but I still don't have a car. I move underground. In the subway, hundreds are none, no one looks at anyone and everyone looks at each other like spies. Everyone knows that not looking is like asking not to be noticed.
Corrupted by your wandering, I grew sick of the way you lived the night: repelled by the return home, eager for ignorance and adventure, begging to be judged like another. Now I'm the one looking for you, everywhere, without finding you. My search for you has only uncovered shame and guilt. My search for you continues to be what takes away the chance of rediscovering ourselves. I was told that I must “de-romanticize”. Maybe I don't love you. Maybe I just really want to love you.
I listen to the bagatelles of the Ukrainian you told me about on the night we danced in Alameda, wet from the sprinklers. My body aches with longing, so I lie down on the bed. The anguish of the lack of response and solution for us accelerates my heart, despite the prescribed stabilizers. Silvestrov's solitary piano makes me imagine halls, camera traveling shots crossing by colossal columns. But of the palace, where the lovers danced, rubble remains today, contaminated traces. Only the ghosts, in the distance, never stop moving and smiling.
You liked to imagine yourself the thief of Genet and from Mário de Sá-Carneiro you quoted by heart how you were an inconstant lover who betrayed himself. You liked to say that the bar was a magic cauldron, that you saw more cinema there than in a darkened room and that, one day, you were going to make a film from those drafted receipts. Unaware that, protected by the fortification of the bar, on the other side of the counter, masked by your naked body, what you liked was to be the center of attention. You forgot how much and how little you loved yourself.
Before the premiere, in the movie theater, the lights dimmed and merged us into darkness. I allowed myself me then to look up at you as you became shadow. It was turning night in the same shirt you took to the dance floor. I remember. The dj got it right, he made Kate Bush sing her If… of the deal with God, and we danced, together in the same space, but leagues away, because to do, to say, to try, there is but nothing. It was a beautiful sunrise, which we shared without sharing. As the sun rose, I smiled and felt so grateful that we were part of each other's lives.
I move forward because I cannot move backwards, where I would like to repeat, amend, contemplate you more, look at each other better. The horror isn't in the past, but in how I can't spoil the memory of us anymore. At Eduardo, when there was still a picnic table with the remains of happiness, I heard you, like a terrorist, shouting my name: Pedro! And there we saw them flee, frightened by your provocation, like when the police car arrives up there and lights up all their nakedness. We claimed for unconditional love and freedom; although both coincide, we intended to rise above the paradox. But Proust is right when he wrote that error is more obstinate than faith, as it does not analyse its beliefs. We abused our bodies so much in search of liberation that what we ended up freeing was from our elusive union – they now call it “toxic”, and intoxicated, we were...!
Our death has been with me since I started loving you and I still can't believe that at least we could mourn it together. It was in one of our endless nights, ridiculously high, but… I remember. You hugged me. You sensed with me our end. You kissed my tears of fear and we lived that present as an unrepeatable gift.
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written and directed FLÁVIO GONÇALVES with JOÃO REIS MOREIRA, RICARDO BARGÃO, ANTÓNIO CALDEIRA PIRES, SÉRGIO CORAGEM, PEDRO ANTUNES, JOÃO GALRÃO and FREDERICO RAMALHO production manager MADALENA FRAGOSO production ANA PINHÃO MOURA, MADALENA FRAGOSO first directing assistant and editing MARGARIDA MENESES direction of photography AFONSO MOTA script boy and casting RÚBEN GONÇALVES wardrobe RÚBEN OSÓRIO sound direction MARCELO TAVARES sound mix RAFAEL GONÇALVES CARDOSO color correction and titles AFONSO MOTA original score MIGUEL MENDES support INSTITUTO DO CINEMA E AUDIOVISUAL, FUNDAÇÃO GDA
I asked the night gardener about you, but he said he didn't know you. I ignore if you continue to turn the night into day. Since the last time we kissed, I've only seen you in my head. I never got to Coimbra and had to sell the car to use it. Believe it or not, today I no longer use it… but I still don't have a car. I move underground. In the subway, hundreds are none, no one looks at anyone and everyone looks at each other like spies. Everyone knows that not looking is like asking not to be noticed.
Corrupted by your wandering, I grew sick of the way you lived the night: repelled by the return home, eager for ignorance and adventure, begging to be judged like another. Now I'm the one looking for you, everywhere, without finding you. My search for you has only uncovered shame and guilt. My search for you continues to be what takes away the chance of rediscovering ourselves. I was told that I must “de-romanticize”. Maybe I don't love you. Maybe I just really want to love you.
I listen to the bagatelles of the Ukrainian you told me about on the night we danced in Alameda, wet from the sprinklers. My body aches with longing, so I lie down on the bed. The anguish of the lack of response and solution for us accelerates my heart, despite the prescribed stabilizers. Silvestrov's solitary piano makes me imagine halls, camera traveling shots crossing by colossal columns. But of the palace, where the lovers danced, rubble remains today, contaminated traces. Only the ghosts, in the distance, never stop moving and smiling.
You liked to imagine yourself the thief of Genet and from Mário de Sá-Carneiro you quoted by heart how you were an inconstant lover who betrayed himself. You liked to say that the bar was a magic cauldron, that you saw more cinema there than in a darkened room and that, one day, you were going to make a film from those drafted receipts. Unaware that, protected by the fortification of the bar, on the other side of the counter, masked by your naked body, what you liked was to be the center of attention. You forgot how much and how little you loved yourself.
Before the premiere, in the movie theater, the lights dimmed and merged us into darkness. I allowed myself me then to look up at you as you became shadow. It was turning night in the same shirt you took to the dance floor. I remember. The dj got it right, he made Kate Bush sing her If… of the deal with God, and we danced, together in the same space, but leagues away, because to do, to say, to try, there is but nothing. It was a beautiful sunrise, which we shared without sharing. As the sun rose, I smiled and felt so grateful that we were part of each other's lives.
I move forward because I cannot move backwards, where I would like to repeat, amend, contemplate you more, look at each other better. The horror isn't in the past, but in how I can't spoil the memory of us anymore. At Eduardo, when there was still a picnic table with the remains of happiness, I heard you, like a terrorist, shouting my name: Pedro! And there we saw them flee, frightened by your provocation, like when the police car arrives up there and lights up all their nakedness. We claimed for unconditional love and freedom; although both coincide, we intended to rise above the paradox. But Proust is right when he wrote that error is more obstinate than faith, as it does not analyse its beliefs. We abused our bodies so much in search of liberation that what we ended up freeing was from our elusive union – they now call it “toxic”, and intoxicated, we were...!
Our death has been with me since I started loving you and I still can't believe that at least we could mourn it together. It was in one of our endless nights, ridiculously high, but… I remember. You hugged me. You sensed with me our end. You kissed my tears of fear and we lived that present as an unrepeatable gift.
written and directed FLÁVIO GONÇALVES with JOÃO REIS MOREIRA, RICARDO BARGÃO, ANTÓNIO CALDEIRA PIRES, SÉRGIO CORAGEM, PEDRO ANTUNES, JOÃO GALRÃO and FREDERICO RAMALHO production manager MADALENA FRAGOSO production ANA PINHÃO MOURA, MADALENA FRAGOSO first directing assistant and editing MARGARIDA MENESES direction of photography AFONSO MOTA script boy and casting RÚBEN GONÇALVES wardrobe RÚBEN OSÓRIO sound direction MARCELO TAVARES sound mix RAFAEL GONÇALVES CARDOSO color correction and titles AFONSO MOTA original score MIGUEL MENDES support INSTITUTO DO CINEMA E AUDIOVISUAL, FUNDAÇÃO GDA