Uninhabitable places and the

dangers of dreams in O Bobo

(1987) by José Álvaro Morais.
VEGA HERNANDEZ, NORMAN

PORTUGUESE CINEMA, CULTURE & IDENTITY

DOC NOMADS 11 - SEM 01

CARDOSO, MIGUEL

2431 WORDS

 Uninhabitable places and the dangers of dreams in O

Bobo (1987) by José Álvaro Morais.
On the surface, O Bobo (1987) by José Álvaro Morais seems to be a lm that
parallels the beginning of one era with the end of another. The rst narrative line
follows Francisco Bernardes, also known as Chico, who is directing and acting in
the theatre adaptation of the novel O Bobo by Alexandre Herculano; the play
explores the foundation of Portugal, the birth of the nation. The second narrative
line follows the daily lives of Chico, his partner and lm actress Rita, and his best
friend, João, four years after the 25th of April revolution, while they attempt to
acquire the money that’ll give them a chance to leave Portugal. In short, while we
see how a country is born, we also follow three people that are done with it.

However, upon closer inspection, O Bobo is a lm that, on the one hand, portrays
the inability of the main characters to have a dream of their own and, on the
other hand, the dangerous consequences of getting caught up in the dreams of
others, whether they share them or not. Their inability to dream and the
subsequent implications of getting absorbed in the dream of others will seal their
fate. No matter how much they delude themselves by fantasising about their
plans, Chico, Rita, and João will never leave Portugal.

While it may appear that the three main characters of the lm share a common
dream of leaving Portugal, it is important to note that this dream holds different
meanings and signi cance for each character. For Chico and Rita, the idea of
leaving Portugal is not so much a dream, but more of an impulsive desire to
escape their current circumstances. They haven't imagined a speci c place to go
to, and no speci c country or city is ever mentioned or discussed as a potential
destination. They only express their dissatisfaction with Portugal but never offer
a clear idea of what the new place should be. In other words, if no place is actually
imagined, it’s impossible to inhabit it. There is no dream to materialise.

What are nations after all but imaginary dreams? Jean Franco (1997)
introduces his article “The nation as imagined community” with a story of how
José Joaquín Fernandez de Lizardi’s novel “El Periquillo Sarniento” came into
existence.

“On the eve of Mexican independence, the Mexican writer Jose Joaquín
Fernández de Lizardi published a letter purportedly from a brother who
had been shipwrecked and washed ashore on an island whose multiracial
population resembled that of Mexico. The brother, who had unexpectedly
become the ruler of the island, appeals to Lizardi to "imagine a kingdom in
your head and give it laws and a constitution." Lizardi responded not in a
letter but with a novel, El periquillo sarniento (The itching parrot [1816]),
in which he included an episode depicting just such an imaginary
kingdom.” (McClintock et al., 1997)

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 In contrast, in their work as artists, Chico and Rita, rather than imagining a new
space to inhabit, are reliving a narrative that has already been created by others.
They are reliving a romanticized narrative of the past, a thought someone else
had about what Portugal is. Through their work in the theatre and lm, they are
also trapped in a version of the past, which they themselves cannot fully inhabit.
Their act of re-creating an existing narrative instead of performing the creative
act of imagining a new space highlights their inability to escape their current
circumstances, not because they long the past, but because they can’t imagine
their future.

Chico, directing a play about the birth of the nation, and Rita, starring in a movie
that sees his romantic interest leave to ght in the colonial war. But as this
narrative can only exist in works of ction the characters can not inhabit this
space. For this reason, while Chico rehearses the play, he remarks seemingly as
part of the narration, “Poor, weak, humiliated. After such glorious days of power
and renown, what are we left with except of the past?.” Similarly, Rita despises
her performance and cannot nish the lm during a screening at Chico’s house.
They are trapped in a place that was imagined by someone else and doesn’t t
them, forcing them to fantasize about abandoning it. Therefore, Chico and Rita
are in a dreadful predicament: they nd the space they occupy uninhabitable, but
at the same time, they cannot dream of a new one. They can’t leave because there
is no place to go.

Morais also gives lmic form to the concept of inhabitable spaces and the
inability to escape by placing the three main characters inside Chico’s mother’s
house. It’s in the very rst minutes of the movie that Chico expresses to Rita that
all his memories are related to that house, Rita answers by asking him what is
binding him there, “Everything Rita. You yourself.”, Chico answers. Rita herself
leaves the house after a ght with Chico motivated by their own inability to nd
their territory as a couple after two years of living inside his mother’s house.
However, after making amends with Chico and worrying for his safety, maybe
even believing in their dream of leaving Portugal, Rita comes back. In João’s case,
he’s been visiting the house since he was a child, and these memories are deeply
ingrained in Chico’s mind that has offered João to be his guest as he has no
apparent means of getting a place of his own.

In summary, the house in this context can be seen as a physical manifestation of

the limitations and constraints placed on imagination and creativity. It serves as
a prison where memories consume the potential for new ideas and thoughts. In
other words, memories kill the potential for imagination. Chico is attached to the
house, trapped in his past experiences, while Rita and João struggle to nd their
place within this setting. It becomes a sort of real-life stage, but unlike in
Herculano’s play the main characters struggle to play a predetermined role,
unable to break free from the constraints of their past experiences and
memories.

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 While Chico and Rita’s story progresses by highlighting their inability to dream,
João’s character, a former exiled member of an extreme left-wing organization,
serves as the most explicit representation to get across the idea of how the
dreams of others can be dangerous. As the story progresses, we learn that João
was a sympathizer of the 25th of April revolution; this revolutionary process was
“a eeting and rare moment where common men and women, the people that
toiled and sweated for little reward, for once could dream of taking fate into their
own hands.” (Rosas, n.d.). Nevertheless, four years later after the revolution,
João seems to have woken up from this dream for which he seemingly delivered
more than he got in return. The movie provides little to no explanation for why
João has reached this state of disillusionment. It’s something that even
characters that are close to him seem not to understand. The detective trying to
prevent the arms deals says to Chico that he can’t reconcile Joaõ’s actions with
his former political activities and debates whether Joaõ is being blackmailed.
During a scene where Chico and Rita are in bed, Rita expresses that she can’t
understand how “somebody that fought for so long in such an orthodox way
suddenly decides the struggle is over.”

According to Graham (1979), in the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution,

Portugal faced a number of signi cant challenges. He identi es three main issues
that the country had to contend with, namely the military, the political parties,
and the economy. With regard to the military, Graham notes the shifts the
Portuguese military was experiencing regarding their involvement in the
political space in the aftermath of the Carnation revolution:

“After a year and a half of active intervention in Portuguese politics and

the attempt of the left military through the alliance known as the Armed
Forces Movement (MFA) to transform radically Portuguese politics and
society, the military once again withdrew to the sidelines, this time
conducting from within a purge of the more radical of cers. Today the
commanding of cers are essentially what I would call centrists; gone are
the old-regime ultras (right-wing extremists) from the foci of military
power. Also gone as a viable group capable of guiding military destinies are
the various left alignments which emerged after April 1974 within the
military institution and which were grouped together under the umbrella
of the MFA.” (p. 156)

Although not speci cally stated, one can infer that João belongs to one of the left
alignments grouped under the MFA as described by Graham (1979). Now, having
been discarded from political or military participation, João nds himself without
a space to inhabit. As previously mentioned, he is a guest in Chico's house and
has no house of his own, and no apparent means of subsistence. He has awakened
from a collective dream of revolution, only to nd himself caught in another
collective dream, that of leaving Portugal. To turn this dream into a reality, he
pretends to sell weapons that were entrusted to him by his former comrades to a
fascist organization and share the money with Chico. This illustrates the idea
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 that João has been trapped in dreams created by others and his actions are
driven by the need to escape this narrative and create a new reality for himself.
Even though João struggles to inhabit the space he occupies in the aftermath of
the revolution, as we’ll learn as the plot evolves, his motivation for leaving the
country is because his freedom is at risk. That is how João’s arch incorporates
another element that differentiates it from the other characters. His disillusioned
state in the aftermath of the revolution hints at a man that believed in a dream
that meant something else for others or perhaps it never even belonged to him.
But ultimately, his death at the hands of Jorge establishes him as a victim of the
dreams of others.

Deleuze (2007), in his work “Two Regimes of Madness,” emphasizes the idea that
individuals can become trapped in the dreams of others and warns against the
dangers of this phenomenon, stating that “Each of us is more or less a victim of
other people’s dreams… Beware of the dreams of others because if you are caught
in their dream, you are done for.”. The story of João serves as a powerful
illustration of this concept. João's situation illustrates the ways in which the
dreams of others can shape our reality. Ultimately, João is unable to escape the
grip of Jorge’s dream and becomes his victim.

In a conversation between Chico and João on the train, we are introduced to the
character of Jorge; we learn that he knows about João’s plan to sell weapons and
has offered to nd a buyer for him. Jorge is an accomplice to a crime that can get
João locked up and has made it his mission to help him leave Portugal. Along the
path, Jorge develops an obsession with João that has not been corresponded in
the same way and ultimately leads him to trump the deal with the fascist
organization that was going to buy the weapons and kill João in the studio where
Chico rehearses the play. João got caught in a dream that was not his and
ultimately ended up being devoured by it.

In O Bobo, other characters’ dreams affect the closest people to them. In the play,
Egas dreams of marrying Dulce, and Don Afonso Henriques dreams of being king;
these dreams and their effects are felt as they lead to battles, both emotionally
and in the eld. They’re the cause of the hits and misses. In the current timeline,
the three main characters endanger each other’s lives, relationships, and
freedom while they wait for the arms deal to close. In the end, the sale is never
completed, and the characters never leave Portugal, but in João’s case, this
failure is not related to his inability to dream but is caused by the force of Jorge’s
dream.

By the movie’s end, we see Chico, Rita, and a group of sailors leave a bar at 7 in
the morning for a walk to some spot in the city. Chico and Rita still discuss and
remember the events that led to João’s death, ultimately leaving them without
the economic means to leave Portugal. Rita questions Chico’s insistence on
leaving the country, “What else do you think you can be outside Portugal if not a
caricature? Do you think it is worth being a caricature of this country in

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another? Do you think they'd nd us funny?”. Chico insists, “we could try,” and
Rita responds, “we could, but it wouldn’t help much.” While they continue their
discussion, we hear one of the sailors sing, “Lisbon exists because we invented it.”

Chico and Rita seem to believe that life is elsewhere, for them, true ful llment
and meaning can only be found outside of their current circumstances. However,
this elsewhere is not found in the past, either in Herculano’s play, in movies
about the colonial war, or in childhood memories, but also is not found in the
present, nor in the country, or in Chico’s mother’s house. Furthermore, is not in
the future, because they cannot imagine it. Both narrative storylines that Morais
incorporates in the lm structure serve to highlight the concept of elsewhere is
an illusion, a mirage that the characters chase after, but never reach. But maybe,
just as in the case of Lizardi’s novel “El Periquillo Sarniento”, true life is in a work
of art where they can truly imagine a future and place for themselves.
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REFERENCE LIST
Deleuze, G. (2006). Two regimes of madness: Texts and interviews 1975 - 1995.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/
737598/42558aad1c0fb7687dd80473e761ab2c.pdf

Graham, L. S. (1979). Is the Portuguese Revolution Dead? Luso-Brazilian Review,

16(2), 147–159. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3513531

McClintock, A., Mufti, A., & Shohat, E. (Eds.). (1997). Dangerous liaisons:
Gender, nation, and postcolonial perspectives (Vol. 11). U of Minnesota Press.

Rosas, F. (n.d.). “To be or not to be: Notes on the Portuguese Revolution of 74/75 on its
40th anniversary” [unpublished lecture]
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TXgefmzblyU0VzzYxzeKb-svuQr_7etB