Classes On Portugal / Lisang na Portugal

The late Portuguese film director José Álvaro Morais directed into his Lucarno Golden Leopard-winning The Jester a dozen apparently separate threads weaving together a vivid picture of Lisbon's young intelligentsia in 1978 amid the idealism aroused by the Portuguese revolution finally dying. It was mostly about most of the central characters being involved in putting on a play (adapted from the novel The Jester  by Alexandre Herculano, on whom I shall write more here later on), counterpointing the on-stage and off-stage lives, especially the off-stage gun-running to finance the play, an ambivalent  love triangle, and a murder... The on-stage scenes were designed sumptuously enough (although with their playful anachronisms of a contemporary theatrical performances) and are in enough of an amount that I ended doing a fan edit cutting just them, the off-stage scenes that mimick the missing scenes of the novel enough and then added some of the similar plotted opera Rigoletto in ...

  Yesterday was the commemoration of the start of Portugal's democratic transition with the April 25th, 1974 Revolution, a mostly peaceful uprising with a small number of dead (provoked by a shooting out of the headquarters of the then-dictatorship's political police PIDE/DGS), barely any resistance from military defending the then-government and a popular welcoming that lead to flower vendors putting red (and according to the main Captain Salgueiro Maia, white ones as well that were deemphasized by the photographer then for symbolic-ideological reasons). Next year, I shall make a more proper post on this holiday and its history, but for now, we shall stay with an edited version of a 1977-78 dystopian film, A Confederação -- O Povo É Que Faz a História  ("The Confederation - The People Is Who Makes History"), which edits out the science fiction elements and tries to portray the closest possible to the actual events from right after the revolution (what in symbolic Por...

English: Let us rejoice: Christ resurrected and vanquished definitely to sin and death.  Cristang: Beng nus fica alegria pa nus tudu mbes: Cristu ja bibe di tona(?) cum ja tira memang retu pekadu cum motri.  Português (original): Alegremo-nos: Cristo ressuscitou e venceu definitivamente a morte e o pecado.  That the Light of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ fill your heart of joy and consolation and lights up all your life.  Por ki ake lumi di sa sufri, sa motri cum sa ja beng bida di tona pa nus sa salvador di Jesus Cristu inche nus sa corasang ku alegria cum da cosolesang cum lumi na nus sa bida.  Que a Luz da Paixão, Morte e Ressurreição de Nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo encha o seu coração de alegria e consolação e ilumine toda a sua vida.  These are the wishes of the Association of Custodians of Mary for you and your family on the soleminity of the Resurrection of the Lord.  Isti sa bondadi di Ranchu pa Gadra di Ave Maria pa...

In Holy Saturday or Hallelujah Saturday/ Sábado de Aleluia (do not confuse with Easter Saturday, the saturday after Easter Sunday. Confused?), there are several local traditions aside the nationwide common Easterly vigils around 9 or 10 p.m. (depending on the towns). In the Middle Tejo region, the Entroncamento municipality promotes initiatives related with Easter including arts-and-crafts sales, perfumes, food and other products and the performing of street animation activities. In the Beiras region, the whole population of the municipality of Idanha-a-Nova and the centennial local philarmonical orchestra have the traditional canto das alvíssaras  ("chant of the good-tidings") with whistles and cowbells being played while women playing adufes sing to the "Lady of the Almortao" (whose feast is weeks afterwards) " Aleluia, aleluia, aleluia, já é festa, alegre-se mãe de Deus, nossa alegria é esta " ("Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, it is already pa...

  Good Friday (more commonly Sexta-Feira Santa  or "Holy Friday" in Portuguese) is the celebration of the Lord's passion and his burrial at the day's end. Its traditional high point is the Procession of the God's Burrial common in historical centres of most Portuguese towns (going away from the local church), whose lighting is only assured by torches put strategically along the pathway, an emotional live recreation of the fourteen stations of the Via Sacra in agreement with the New Testament report with prayers and religious chants, accompanied by reading (now broadcast on stereo systems) meditating on the mysteries of the Christian faith and suffering as well as hope). In Braga in the Minho region and Óbidos in the  Oeste  ("West" but more properly central-western) region there is the mass of the Lord's Passion and to the afternoon's end is done the Procession of the Lord's Burrial, going out from the main local church, and then ends after g...

Holy Thrusday or Maundy Thursday is famous in Portugal for the nightly "Ecce Homo" or Senhor dos Passos  ("Lord of the Steps" or "Stations") Procession (reproducing the presenting of the captured Jesus by Pilate to the crowd, being the day of the washing of the feet, last supper and capture and trial). The most noted element of it in Portugal are the farricocos , men who dress all in black cloaks and carry sticks that carry bowls on fire or sticks that turn around and make snapping or cracking sounds. They were originally a pre-Christian pagan tradition probably named after the farricoque  (the digitalis flower in the Galician language with same root as Portuguese where it is called dedaleira ) and coco (a generic Galician-Portuguese term for ghosts or boggeymen associated to cut-off heads of enemies with similar Ibero-American equivalents), in which people dressed in black representing ghosts came to " lançar as pulhas " ("casting the scou...