Palácios de Pena is set upon a series of fabulous, almost fantastical locations that serve as set for a narrative that intertwines childhood imagery with historical and social imaginary. Following the vicissitudes of two teenage girls, Palácios de Pena offers an opulent and lavish cinematography to critically observe the historical roots of Portuguese culture.

João Mourão & Luís Silva: We started this conversation by asking you both, in an early email, about the nature of your voice. We speak as a single entity; even though we are two, our voice is the voice of our collaboration, a curatorial ‘we’ of sorts. In your case, the situation is undefined and, as we write, we still don’t know how you will answer, which is very interesting. The question of the voice became important to us because the film revolves around a certain tension, or position to be more accurate, towards Portugal, with the “I hate Portugal” or the more specific (and random) “I hate Algarve” sentences being used throughout the film. What, or whose, voice is that?

Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt: We will answer together. We will write back and forth a few ideas concerning each question and then iron them out together. We usually both write, direct, cast, shoot, and edit our films like this, going back and forth, not really dividing the labor. More generally, in terms of voice, we are trying to be a bit messy. Since we work on our own and with other people, we are not a traditional collaborative duo, which would very similar to the economic and social status of an individual artist. We also don't want to form a collective. We work together because we are friends, it is pleasurable, it is intellectually rewarding, it makes the practice of making art a social process. I think one of the reasons we have all been attracted to cinema is because of its collaborative base.

Palácios is a film about Portugal, and the line about hating Portugal and the Algarve is indicative of how part of that project was made. Gabriel wanted to make a film in Portugal, and was very interested in exploring cinema's relation to nation, particularly as national myth machine (especially in the US, from Griffith’s Birth of a Nation to Bigelow’s Zero dark Thirty). Gabriel wanted to be quite direct, with blunt and broad statements about Portugal, such as “I hate Portugal”. Then Daniel wrote “I hate the Algarve” as a humorously specific response, transforming it into an absurd comment on Portugal, since the beach resorts the Algarve is known for are such a banal contrast to the history of violent oppression being discussed in the rest of the film.

JM & LS: We are curious about how that idea of the film discussing the history of violent oppression relates to the narrative and more specifically to the two main characters, the two teenagers. Even though the narrative revolves around them, one never stops feeling as if they are two-dimensional abstractions. Each of them seems nothing but a flat surface in which things can be projected upon. Is their numbness, or lack of depth something you wanted to make very explicit?

GA & DS: The two dimensionality of the characters comes from the fact that the actors (in this case, non professional actors), never read the script before coming on set. This is a sort of inversion of ‘method’ acting, where we do not allow the actors to interiorize or consider any psychological, emotional, or social motivations. We feed the actors the lines and actions on set, and have them repeat after us while the camera is rolling. There is no live sound on set, so we dub every line, usually having the actor whisper their text very close to the microphone. This creates an unnatural tension, where the characters don't seem to mean any of the things they are saying. The melodramatic language of the script, which often hyperbolizes the emotional states of the characters, is contrasted by an artificial, emotionally vapid and deadpan delivery. “I hate grandma.”, “I’m thirteen and I already miss being twelve.”, or “I tried to tell your mothers how disappointed I was with them” are delivered in a hushed monotone that renders them seemingly insincere.

This insincerity, this emptiness of expressive capacity, this refusal of psychology, relates to the main theme in our work. We are concerned with how idealism, morality, and politics are mostly subservient to private desires, and how even these private desires come from the social, economic, and cultural background of the characters. In our films, the characters are both unable to be sincerely political, sincerely expressive, or even pursue sincere desire. They move and talk as shadows of a prefabricated political melodrama. In the case of the tween protagonists of Palácios de Pena, we wanted to represent upper class coming of age youth in Lisbon, which is totally ignorant of the history of oppression they are inheriting, while unconsciously reproducing its symptoms. We wanted to see how Portugal’s history of government sanctioned xenophobia and sexual intolerance, spanning from the inquisition to fascism, would surface in Lisbon’s wealthy teen coterie.

JM & LS: It’s interesting that you mention that your characters are unable to be sincerely political or expressive or even pursue sincere desire. What is there left to do if one can’t, or is unable, to be, or do, these things?

GA & DS: I think it is difficult to deal with a lack of emotional, political, and sexual agency. I think we are trying to figure it out. We are coming out of a century that said morality is culturally specific, everything we think and feel is constricted by the languages we learn, religion is a social construct, utopian prerogatives lead to totalitarian dominion, etc. (leading to Heidegger‘s postulating that being is ‘throwness towards death’ or Beckett saying “I can't go on, I can't go on... I'll go on...”) So I think it is a hard question.

I think that is why we are interested in working on traditional narrative. We are exploring more classical forms, in order to see if those forms are more useful. We are reacting to the openness and flexibility that came out of postmodernism, and to the unstable hermeneutic freedom it lauded. We are avoiding meta-narrative, fragmentation, or ‘non-linear’ literary mechanisms. We are currently exploring comedy, and that is what we are most excited about. We wrote a feature film, which mixes slapstick comedy with the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. I think we are interested in getting laughs, seeing how that works, and seeing what that means.

Credits

Palácios de Pena, written and directed by Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt

Produced by a Mutual Respect
Producers: Zé dos Bois, Marta Furtado, Natxo Checa and Gabriel Abrantes
Production: Design Natxo Checa
Production Manager: Joana Botelho
Production Assistant: Daniela Ribeiro

Courtesy of Mutual Respect Productions and Assoçiação Zé Dos Bois