Memories of the Yellow House

Memories of the Yellow House
by João César Monteiro
1989 | Portugal | 2h | Restored digital copy

Lisbon, 1989. A poor middle-aged man lives in a room in a cheap family guesthouse in the old riverside area of the city. Tormented by illness and various vicissitudes, the idiot, who feeds on Schubert and, perhaps, a vague cinephilia as a form of resistance to misery, is thrown out onto the street after a frustrated attempt to seduce the daughter of the boarding house owner.

Alone and deprived of any resources, he is confronted with the harshness of the urban environment and is admitted to a mental hospital, from which he will leave by the considered decision of a free man, to fulfil a ‘rich and strange’ mission assigned to him by an old friend, mentally ill like him: ‘Go and give them work!’ And here, between us, laughing and laughing, some have given…

with João César Monteiro, Manuela de Freitas, Ruy Furtado and Teresa Calado