Original subtitles

HOLLAND. LATE 20th CENTURY

1st May. All the tables on the beach were booked

By bribery, we got a table...

...only a kilometer from the official stand

An excellent position to view the manoeuvres...

...of the Netherlands Soviet Republic...

...Democratic Federal Burgundy...

...and the Socialist United States of Ireland

I saw Narcisso for the first time

Look, he's got a better table than us

He must be an official guest

We're official guests, too

He must be a guest of Workers' Philips

That doesn't make him better than us

I expected the worst

I didn't know the day would be so surprising

He wouldn't come to our table...

...so I decided to go to him

Wonderful, isn't it?

- What will you speak? - French

My favourite language. A pity no one uses it

I don't speak Dutch

ON TOP OF THE WHALE

A FILM ABOUT SURVIVAL

I have a house just like on this postcard

In Patagonia

Isn't it wonderful?

Just the same house as my grandparents'

This was a coincidence

That morning Eva had told me her dream

She had returned to her grandfather's home...

...with me and a strange man who was her husband

Even stranger, in fact we had planned a visit...

...to her grandfather's house, now a monument...

...after the Democratic Evangelicals' chairman...

...(the Dutch Communists) had stayed a night there

Madam says you are an anthropologist

What is your specialization?

Collective telepathy...

...among primitive tribes in South America...

...and Workers' Philips staff

- Does it exist? - Certainly

It's bad?

As a sociologist, I cannot make value judgments

Sociometry identifies...

...four interlinked phenomena:

the prophetic dreams of Indian tribes...

...weekend delirium of Workers' Philips staff...

...increased drug trafficking...

...and Leninist literature as a best-seller

Very interesting

Haven't you had contact with Indians?

I spent four years with the Caonize Indians

In my house in Patagonia...

...live the last two surviving Yachanes Indians

My kid

From then on we were inseparable

We met daily in Haarlem at Hotel Malcolm X...

...or May Heroes Beach, or in nightclubs...

...named after Bloody Week in The Hague

...extinct in 1970

The last two?

Are you sure they are Yachanes?

Yes, I am certain, they are like family to me

May I kiss him?

Freely

We eventually accepted the invitation...

...of Narcisso Cambos, communist millionaire

Scenario and direction

Don Narcisso

What a mess here

You should lock up the house

Look at this mess, bastard

I can't take it any more, do you hear me?

Don't you understand what I say?

Your shoes will get filthy in that shit

Then your mother will be angry

It's called The Gobbling Cat

All he does is find everything amusing

I knew you would say that

I knew you would say you knew

I know everything that's going to be said

Anthropologist

Don't look

I'm going to stand up now...

...and look at them

The moment I saw Eva, I said:

"You're the man for her"

I love her very much

I really love her

Why? Do you fancy her?

You're jealous. Extremely jealous

Nothing wrong with that. I am never jealous

My God, not more suffering

You mustn't confuse appearance with reality

The relationship between myself and Eva...

...is more complicated than it appears

I love her dearly...

...but in a completely negative way

Eva is the opposite...

...of the woman I find most hateful

So I love her

I know. I envy you

My God, the Virgin again

She saved my life

She saved me from the abyss I had plunged into

She helps me find my work again

She saved my life

I have a cassette. Would you like to hear it?

Paprika

They are here

Good evening

These friends of mine have come to visit you

"Good evening". How do you say that?

What has your boss brought for you? A present

If he eats that, he'll get Patagonian colic

What do you say?

Thank you

Very good. You are very intelligent

It takes intellectual labor...

Sit down

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen

Good idea. Rather late, but very interesting

Incredible. He doesn't trust anyone

Ask why Indians must be beaten

Ask him in English

He's much more interesting than the Indians

More dangerous

But also more loyal

You have to know him, then you realise

I hope you know he's very dangerous

Yes, but very loyal

A pathological case

He hasn't a clue

3rd April. Slept badly. Fighting in the night

What is this?

And this?

Narcisso, I won't be a minute

And what's this?

Come on, it's nice outside

We'll eat, so please leave that now

To get to know them well, you mustn't go on too long

But I must question them

But you mustn't tire them out

All right, never mind

Ours...

...see the others...

...reincarnation, hunger, war, rain, summer...

Walk in bad weather, freighter, dog...

...what others think of you...

...rock on your head if you insult an elder

Beating a child to death on a rock

Eclipse of the sun and moon, stars

Sea, earth, mother...

...Republic of Chile, Argentina, canned fruit...

...son, dog, song sung by others

Fatal conflict between two tribes, death...

...Puntanela hospital, river stones...

...light of the moon

Sea of whales...

...woman, fire-water, sun, deaf...

...artillery fire

Menstruation, walking with no sense of direction...

...thirst, endless...

...god of the mountain, raw meat

Evenings alone

Strong emotion at sunset

Sheep...

...question and answer game...

...explanation of the meaning of life, violin

Thirty glasses of fire-water in the morning

A thirty-year hangover

Stop it

Hand me that

My tongue...

Dug, but found no trace of the many skeletons...

...Narcisso says are buried around the house

Found many beer bottles, 3 radios, rabbit skulls

The dictionary comprises sixty words...

...as does the Wilkins dictionary

Both are in exactly the same order

7th April. Mistake; the skulls are not ritual...

...but rabbit stew has cannibal cult links

1st May. Workers' Day

Early meditation on the Chicago martyrs

Afternoon: reading from "State and Revolution"

Evening: political talk. We fast until Monday

Please go away

3rd May. Slept badly, due to an air-raid

Adam and Eden have buried all our mirrors

Luis lashed them, then all three of them cried

Thomas Bridge's 300,000 word dictionary...

...is derived from 60 root words; metaphors...

...double and triple metaphors

Don't go too close, they may be dangerous, strange

Are proletarians always strange?

Too much exploitation has made them strange

The pain has turned them insane

Do all proletarians of the world unite...

...because the pain has made them insane?

No, that's something else

Quiet, I understand

- What did you do? - I don't now

- In which language? - I don't know

5th May. Woken by whispering at 3 a.m.

I heard a baby cry, then Adam and Eden laughed

Now I understand everything

The 60 Yagan words are an arithmetical system

They add, subtract, multiply and divide...

...according to rules which clarify everything

Shut up!

I'll cut that tongue out now if you don't shut up

7th May. Each month Adam and Eden exchange names

9th May. Good

They are telepathic, like Narcisso, I think

So what?

The terrible truth: one human exploits another

Alphonso Alberquerque's commentaries...

...made Adam and Eden laugh incessantly

12th May. They continued taking photos...

...each having a different name

Today's rain hasn't the same name as yesterday's

There is no water, or fire, no whips...

...only situations, all different

14th May

Double, triple metaphors are no coincidence

They mean the intuition of 2 and 3 as spoken

They are incapable of more modern thought...

...because conception of the singular eludes them

They are convinced that 1 is an even number...

...so regression is infinite

20th May. They bury the mirrors again

21st May. Naval battle: Chile versus Argentina

Heavy shelling at night

23rd May

Every word or saying tacitly contains others

Tacit metaphors speak between spoken metaphors

Ignorant chatterboxes: silence means more said

24th May. I opened my heart to Eden

I spoke German, so he wouldn't understand

He placed my hand on his heart, speaking Italian:

"Every heartbeat has a name"

27th May

Every day they construct a different language...

...a Gothic cathedral

Dreamt up at night, forgotten by morning

Proof that too much culture...

...leads to barbarism and hinders development

2nd June. The world is contained in 60 words

Each implies the whole in its own perspective

Denying singularity, two things are said at once

Each double reflection of the world...

...implies 59 second degree reflections

The intelligent become increasingly silent

25th June. Illusion

The Indians' language is non-existent

I found the documents today

They are recessives, not pure Indians

Nothing they do or say has meaning

The whole world deceives me

I deserve a holiday in Romania

And Eva has decided she doesn't love me

I shall not return

Things change sex in the mirror

All things are divided into sexes

So are all movements. This is male

This is female

The bet is over

Not with the kitchen knife

please don't cut out your tongue

I must tell you something

My life has changed...

...since that disastrous bet

I discover a friend in you...

...and myself here

When traveling, I always wonder: who am I?

Where do I come from? Where is my fatherland?

I was searching, but you found a new world for me

I had violent tendencies, but a child's heart

But now I am determined...

...to give up everything and write

But not in Spanish

I was always cynical. I laughed at everyone

But now I feel responsible...

...for this country, these Indians in Patagonia...

...massacred by our ancestors

In this novel I want to write about who I am...

...who you are...

...as homage to this noble race...

...which has seen so much bloodshed...

...that Patagonia resembled a battlefield

It is delightful to meet the world's finest people

People of the world

The loneliness in this hole...

...would be unbearable

Loneliness... unbearable

Your visit today is deeply moving

Deeply... visit

Your visit moves my soul

Soul... moves

The daily conversations made apparent...

A final judgment of the people will reveal...

Mozart was a genius...

...but it came too easily to him

His good fortune was his weakness

Mozart was reactionary

Beethoven revolutionary, because he showed...

...the desperate petit bourgeoisie

But his music offered no way out

But Beethoven sells more records

Beethoven is played by musicians...

...closer to the people

I have returned

Eva and Narcisso have changed drastically

The suicide of Luis must have shocked them deeply

I forget everything when I set foot in the house

Hours later I'll return to my hotel

I can still view, review, hear, rehearse

...the images and words I no longer comprehend

Greetings, friends

How are you?

Well?

You have traveled widely

You know Spinoza...

...who left Spain for Holland

He had good ideas. What happened to them?

You have been to Germany. You know Hegel

A good man

You have learned much

How did you learn so many languages?

You have a good memory

What will you do with what I know...

...and what you said?

What more than all those others we talked about?

I am leaving