WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.379 Imagine you've been handed this massive budget 00:00:03.379 --> 00:00:07.379 to make a sweeping historical war epic. Your 00:00:07.379 --> 00:00:09.580 instinct is probably to show your country's greatest 00:00:09.580 --> 00:00:12.000 victories. Oh, absolutely. The triumphant moments. 00:00:12.179 --> 00:00:15.179 The ones that get put into school textbooks or 00:00:15.179 --> 00:00:17.640 turned into statues in the town square. Exactly. 00:00:17.719 --> 00:00:20.440 Those moments of undisputed glory. Well, today 00:00:20.440 --> 00:00:22.719 we are taking a look at a piece of cinema that 00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:26.280 took all of our historical sources and just completely 00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:28.559 flipped that script. We're exploring a film... 00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:31.460 where a director decided to focus entirely on 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:34.460 a nation's most devastating, crushing historical 00:00:34.460 --> 00:00:36.920 defeats. Yeah, it is a radically different approach 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:39.039 to storytelling. Most nations, you know, they 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:40.859 build their cinematic and cultural myths around 00:00:40.859 --> 00:00:43.119 winning. They forge their identities in the fire 00:00:43.119 --> 00:00:45.600 of victory. But today, we are exploring a narrative 00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:47.960 that builds its entire philosophical foundation 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:51.619 on losing and what that losing does to the collective 00:00:51.619 --> 00:00:54.600 psyche of a country over centuries. Okay, let's 00:00:54.600 --> 00:00:56.920 unpack this. The film we are looking at in this 00:00:56.920 --> 00:00:59.759 deep dive is the 1990s cinematic masterpiece 00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:04.319 called No, or The Vainglory of Command. And in 00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:08.340 Portuguese, that translates to Known, von Gloria 00:01:08.340 --> 00:01:10.879 de Mondar. Which is such a powerful title right 00:01:10.879 --> 00:01:13.599 out of the gate. It really is. Before we get 00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:15.760 into the dense historical weeds, let's lay out 00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:17.739 the foundational facts from the stack of sources 00:01:17.739 --> 00:01:20.319 we're looking at today. This film was directed 00:01:20.319 --> 00:01:22.760 and edited by the legendary Portuguese filmmaker 00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:25.159 Manuel de Oliveira. It was produced by Paulo 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:29.239 Branco, features some truly stunning atmospheric 00:01:29.239 --> 00:01:32.099 cinematography by Elsa Roque, and clocks in at 00:01:32.099 --> 00:01:35.260 a substantial 110 minutes. It actually premiered 00:01:35.260 --> 00:01:37.400 out of competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:39.379 But looking past that pedigree behind the camera, 00:01:39.620 --> 00:01:42.079 the real hook is the intense, almost haunting 00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:44.400 way it structures its story. Yeah, the structure 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:46.299 is wild. What we're really doing in this deep 00:01:46.299 --> 00:01:49.000 dive is exploring how Olivera synthesizes an 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:52.060 entire nation's history. He's taking these cyclical 00:01:52.060 --> 00:01:54.500 historical failures and using them to explain 00:01:54.500 --> 00:01:57.200 a very modern military crisis. He's essentially 00:01:57.200 --> 00:02:00.219 asking this profound question of how the weight 00:02:00.219 --> 00:02:02.930 of centuries of defeat crashes down. onto the 00:02:02.930 --> 00:02:04.890 shoulders of just a single generation of soldiers. 00:02:05.430 --> 00:02:07.430 Exactly. It demands that you look at history 00:02:07.430 --> 00:02:10.469 not as a straight line of human progress, but 00:02:10.469 --> 00:02:13.530 as a continuous repeating loop of human ambition 00:02:13.530 --> 00:02:16.770 and, well, inevitable failure. To understand 00:02:16.770 --> 00:02:18.509 that loop, we really have to start where the 00:02:18.509 --> 00:02:22.090 film starts, which is in a very grim, very muddy 00:02:22.090 --> 00:02:25.189 present. The year is 1974. It's early April. 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:28.780 and the scene opens in an ambiguous African territory. 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:31.340 Right. Our notes suggest it could be Portuguese 00:02:31.340 --> 00:02:34.759 Guinea, Angola, or Mozambique. What we know for 00:02:34.759 --> 00:02:36.860 certain is that we are right in the thick of 00:02:36.860 --> 00:02:39.319 the Portuguese colonial war. This was a brutal 00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:42.860 conflict that ran from 1961 to 1974. We were 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:44.960 riding in a transport truck, navigating through 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:47.379 a dense, unforgiving jungle, and were introduced 00:02:47.379 --> 00:02:49.780 to a group of Portuguese soldiers. And that transport 00:02:49.780 --> 00:02:51.900 truck is practically suffocating. You can feel 00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:53.979 the physical and emotional exhaustion radiating 00:02:53.979 --> 00:02:56.419 off these men. They're entirely drained. That 00:02:56.419 --> 00:02:59.139 exhaustion makes total sense when you look at 00:02:59.139 --> 00:03:01.439 who is leading them and the conversations they're 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:04.120 having. You meet the leader of this patrol, Lieutenant 00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:07.479 Cabrita. Interestingly, he is a former history 00:03:07.479 --> 00:03:10.150 student. which becomes the linchpin of the whole 00:03:10.150 --> 00:03:12.849 narrative later on. Yeah, that detail is crucial. 00:03:12.889 --> 00:03:14.990 You also meet his men, like Corporal Brito and 00:03:14.990 --> 00:03:17.710 Soldier Manuel. And the mood among them isn't 00:03:17.710 --> 00:03:22.090 just tired, it's this profound fatalism, total 00:03:22.090 --> 00:03:24.389 disillusionment. They're heading toward a military 00:03:24.389 --> 00:03:27.550 base to engage with liberation movement guerrillas, 00:03:27.710 --> 00:03:30.550 but the soldiers themselves are constantly questioning 00:03:30.550 --> 00:03:33.349 the entire purpose of their presence in this 00:03:33.349 --> 00:03:35.789 war. They're essentially asking the Void, why 00:03:35.789 --> 00:03:38.680 are we still here? I know the historical context 00:03:38.680 --> 00:03:41.060 is crucial for us to understand this. Why were 00:03:41.060 --> 00:03:43.139 these Pacific soldiers feeling so incredibly 00:03:43.139 --> 00:03:46.199 hopeless by 1974? Well, if we connect this to 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:48.879 the bigger picture, that profound fatalism isn't 00:03:48.879 --> 00:03:51.319 just a symptom of being tired and stationed in 00:03:51.319 --> 00:03:54.580 a hostile jungle environment. It's a direct result 00:03:54.580 --> 00:03:57.460 of incredible geopolitical isolation. The film 00:03:57.460 --> 00:04:00.539 paints a very accurate, stark picture of Portugal 00:04:00.539 --> 00:04:03.240 standing in the world at that specific historical 00:04:03.240 --> 00:04:05.990 moment. These soldiers know that they aren't 00:04:05.990 --> 00:04:08.389 just fighting local liberation guerrillas in 00:04:08.389 --> 00:04:12.169 Africa. Their nation, back home, is facing opposition 00:04:12.169 --> 00:04:14.789 and heavy criticism from virtually the entire 00:04:14.789 --> 00:04:16.970 globe. It wasn't just a localized thing. Not 00:04:16.970 --> 00:04:19.589 at all. You have the United States, the USSR, 00:04:19.970 --> 00:04:22.110 China, the rest of Europe, and newly independent 00:04:22.110 --> 00:04:25.449 African states. All of these global powers are 00:04:25.449 --> 00:04:28.829 actively undermining and criticizing the Portuguese 00:04:28.829 --> 00:04:32.089 colonial efforts. completely surrounded politically 00:04:32.089 --> 00:04:35.209 speaking. Yes. The Cold War is raging, but both 00:04:35.209 --> 00:04:37.410 sides agree that Portugal should not be clinging 00:04:37.410 --> 00:04:40.649 to an empire. Portugal is standing entirely alone 00:04:40.649 --> 00:04:43.829 on the world stage. That creates this unbelievable 00:04:43.829 --> 00:04:46.209 pressure cooker of an environment. You have these 00:04:46.209 --> 00:04:48.910 soldiers isolated geographically in the jungle, 00:04:49.389 --> 00:04:51.470 isolated politically from the world and feeling 00:04:51.470 --> 00:04:53.629 totally abandoned by history itself. And this 00:04:53.629 --> 00:04:55.649 is where Lieutenant Cabrita, tapping into that 00:04:55.649 --> 00:04:57.410 background as a history student you mentioned, 00:04:57.790 --> 00:05:00.540 starts to philosophize. Right, he starts trying 00:05:00.540 --> 00:05:03.079 to help his men make sense of their doomed reality. 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:06.639 And to do this, the film employs its most unique 00:05:06.639 --> 00:05:09.740 narrative device. Cabrita starts launching into 00:05:09.740 --> 00:05:12.800 these vivid historical flashbacks to explain 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:14.680 to his men why they are currently sitting in 00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:17.600 the mud fighting a losing battle. It serves as 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:20.199 a brilliant framing mechanism. Cabrita is reaching 00:05:20.199 --> 00:05:23.399 back into the deep past to find a vocabulary 00:05:23.399 --> 00:05:25.800 for the pain and futility they're experiencing 00:05:25.800 --> 00:05:28.959 in 1974. He's trying to give their suffering 00:05:28.959 --> 00:05:31.759 context. I noticed in the notes that the casting 00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:34.259 is highly unusual for these historical flashbacks. 00:05:34.819 --> 00:05:37.500 The film uses the exact same actors to play the 00:05:37.500 --> 00:05:40.569 modern soldiers in the 1974 jungle. and the warriors 00:05:40.569 --> 00:05:42.910 in the ancient past. It's a fascinating choice. 00:05:43.110 --> 00:05:45.689 Yeah. For example, the actor Luis Miguel Sintra 00:05:45.689 --> 00:05:47.649 plays Lieutenant Caprita, but he also plays the 00:05:47.649 --> 00:05:50.709 ancient leader Viriathus and later a figure named 00:05:50.709 --> 00:05:53.009 Dom Schwamm. You have other actors too, like 00:05:53.009 --> 00:05:55.589 Diogo Doria, Miguel Guilherme and Luis Lucas. 00:05:55.889 --> 00:05:58.209 Exactly. They play these exhausted modern soldiers 00:05:58.209 --> 00:06:00.269 and then seamlessly transition into the roles 00:06:00.269 --> 00:06:03.009 of historical warriors in flashbacks. What is 00:06:03.009 --> 00:06:05.230 Oliver trying to say by making that specific 00:06:05.230 --> 00:06:07.730 theatrical choice? By casting the same faces 00:06:07.730 --> 00:06:10.850 across centuries, Olivera creates a powerful 00:06:10.850 --> 00:06:13.769 visual echo. He's telling you that this isn't 00:06:13.769 --> 00:06:17.129 just a dry history lesson. This is a recurring 00:06:17.129 --> 00:06:21.069 national nightmare. Wow. The modern soldier is 00:06:21.069 --> 00:06:23.730 inextricably linked to the ancient warrior. They 00:06:23.730 --> 00:06:26.110 are trapped in the exact same cycle, carrying 00:06:26.110 --> 00:06:28.990 the same burdens. It strips away the illusion 00:06:28.990 --> 00:06:31.370 that the past is distant or disconnected from 00:06:31.370 --> 00:06:34.420 the present. Let's dive into that cycle. Cabrita 00:06:34.420 --> 00:06:36.759 takes his men all the way back to antiquity for 00:06:36.759 --> 00:06:39.519 the first flashback. We see the struggle of the 00:06:39.519 --> 00:06:42.279 guerrilla leader Viriathus fighting against the 00:06:42.279 --> 00:06:44.959 Roman invaders in Lusitania. And for some quick 00:06:44.959 --> 00:06:47.540 context from our sources, Lusitania was an ancient 00:06:47.540 --> 00:06:49.939 Roman province that roughly corresponds to modern 00:06:49.939 --> 00:06:52.620 -day Portugal. Viriathus is portrayed as this 00:06:52.620 --> 00:06:55.759 incredibly successful guerrilla leader, using 00:06:55.759 --> 00:06:58.660 the terrain to outsmart the massive Roman military 00:06:58.660 --> 00:07:01.240 machine. But despite his tactical brilliance, 00:07:01.379 --> 00:07:03.879 it doesn't end in triumph. No, it doesn't. The 00:07:03.879 --> 00:07:06.259 tragedy of Viriathus as the film frames it isn't 00:07:06.259 --> 00:07:08.779 simply that he was eventually betrayed and assassinated. 00:07:09.079 --> 00:07:11.939 It's a fundamental failure of vision. Viriathus 00:07:11.939 --> 00:07:15.220 misses a crucial opportunity. He fails to capitalize 00:07:15.220 --> 00:07:17.420 on the positive aspects of Roman civilization. 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:20.480 Rome brought administration, infrastructure, 00:07:20.759 --> 00:07:23.019 and a broader worldview. But he rejects all of 00:07:23.019 --> 00:07:26.519 that. Exactly. Because Viriathus rejects or fails 00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:29.439 to integrate those advancements, focusing entirely 00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:32.339 on resistance, he misses the chance to establish 00:07:32.339 --> 00:07:35.420 a lasting unified kingdom for his people. The 00:07:35.420 --> 00:07:37.560 lesson here isn't just about ancient Rome, is 00:07:37.560 --> 00:07:40.439 it? It's a universal insight about adaptation. 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:43.740 It's about how the inability to synthesize opposing 00:07:43.740 --> 00:07:46.779 ideas or the refusal to learn from your competitors 00:07:46.779 --> 00:07:49.980 leads directly to your own downfall. That is 00:07:49.980 --> 00:07:52.540 a perfect parallel. You see that same rigid mindset 00:07:52.540 --> 00:07:54.860 destroying modern organizations or political 00:07:54.860 --> 00:07:57.560 movements today. They fight so hard against an 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:00.240 opposing force that they refuse to absorb any 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:02.819 of its useful innovations. It's the first example 00:08:02.819 --> 00:08:05.060 in the film of a victory slipping through their 00:08:05.060 --> 00:08:07.319 fingers due to a lack of broader perspective. 00:08:07.319 --> 00:08:10.199 It sets the thematic stage. And Cabrita doesn't 00:08:10.199 --> 00:08:12.800 stop there. He keeps pulling his men through 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:15.379 the centuries. Flashbacks two and three deal 00:08:15.379 --> 00:08:18.560 with a concept called the Iberian Union. This 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:21.600 was the recurring desperate dream of uniting 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:24.899 Portugal and Spain into a single unstoppable 00:08:24.899 --> 00:08:28.300 continental powerhouse. A dream that never quite 00:08:28.300 --> 00:08:31.379 worked out the way they wanted. Right. The second 00:08:31.379 --> 00:08:34.539 flashback takes us to the year 1476, during the 00:08:34.539 --> 00:08:37.539 Castilian War of Succession. This was a massive 00:08:37.539 --> 00:08:40.039 dynastic conflict over who would rule the Crown 00:08:40.039 --> 00:08:43.299 of Castile. We see the Portuguese King Afonso 00:08:43.299 --> 00:08:45.519 suffer a crushing defeat at the Battle of Toro, 00:08:45.860 --> 00:08:47.960 which violently prevents the unification of the 00:08:47.960 --> 00:08:50.899 Iberian Peninsula. Why was this idea of union 00:08:50.899 --> 00:08:53.100 such a recurring obsession for them? Uniting 00:08:53.100 --> 00:08:55.500 with Spain was seen as a matter of ultimate survival 00:08:55.500 --> 00:08:58.159 and relevance. Portugal, geographically, is backed 00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:00.159 against the Atlantic Ocean, with Spain acting 00:09:00.159 --> 00:09:02.460 as a massive wall between it and the rest of 00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:04.740 Europe. So they felt trapped? Completely. If 00:09:04.740 --> 00:09:06.220 they could unite the crowns, they wouldn't just 00:09:06.220 --> 00:09:08.379 secure their borders. They would become the undisputed 00:09:08.379 --> 00:09:11.139 masters of the globe. But the defeat at the Battle 00:09:11.139 --> 00:09:14.639 of Toro crushes that military ambition. Ambition 00:09:14.639 --> 00:09:17.879 meets brutal reality. To show that even peaceful 00:09:17.879 --> 00:09:20.740 ambitions are cursed in this cycle, the third 00:09:20.740 --> 00:09:23.080 flashback shows a later attempt at diplomatic 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:26.539 unification. This time, they try to unite Portugal 00:09:26.539 --> 00:09:29.139 and Spain through a royal marriage between Afonso 00:09:29.139 --> 00:09:32.740 of Portugal and Isabella of Spain. A purely diplomatic 00:09:32.740 --> 00:09:35.480 solution. But even that peaceful route is instantly 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:38.700 thwarted. It's cut short by the sudden, entirely 00:09:38.700 --> 00:09:41.360 unpredictable death of a young Portuguese prince 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:43.679 who was meant to inherit this unified empire. 00:09:43.879 --> 00:09:46.299 Just defeat after defeat. If it isn't the sword, 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:49.659 it's fate stepping in to say no. It's a stark 00:09:49.659 --> 00:09:52.139 reminder that forcing synergies, whether between 00:09:52.139 --> 00:09:54.620 two 15th century kingdoms or two modern corporate 00:09:54.620 --> 00:09:57.799 mega -mergers, often ends in unpredictable disaster. 00:09:58.080 --> 00:09:59.899 This relentless recounting of failure serves 00:09:59.899 --> 00:10:02.259 a very specific purpose for Cabrida's narrative. 00:10:02.519 --> 00:10:04.639 He isn't just trying to depress his men further. 00:10:04.960 --> 00:10:07.220 He is building a complex philosophical argument 00:10:07.220 --> 00:10:09.559 about the nature of conquest itself. Here's where 00:10:09.559 --> 00:10:12.200 it gets really interesting. The film transitions 00:10:12.200 --> 00:10:14.679 from the marching and the intense historical 00:10:14.679 --> 00:10:17.700 flashbacks to the soldiers finally setting up 00:10:17.700 --> 00:10:20.620 camp for the night in the deep jungle. They are 00:10:20.620 --> 00:10:22.559 sitting around the campfire, the darkness pressing 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:25.809 in on them. and Cabrita shares this profound 00:10:25.809 --> 00:10:28.950 epiphany. It's a very striking scene. He argues 00:10:28.950 --> 00:10:31.570 the territorial conquests, all these endless 00:10:31.570 --> 00:10:34.389 battles for land, borders, and dominance are 00:10:34.389 --> 00:10:37.980 entirely futile. It's an incredibly bold almost 00:10:37.980 --> 00:10:40.159 subversive statement for a military commander 00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:43.000 to make to his troops in the middle of a literal 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:45.700 war zone. He tells them that a nation's true 00:10:45.700 --> 00:10:48.320 legacy isn't about what it takes from the world 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:50.580 through military force, but what it contributes 00:10:50.580 --> 00:10:53.200 to humanity through discovery and knowledge. 00:10:53.549 --> 00:10:56.929 It's a total philosophical rejection of the vain 00:10:56.929 --> 00:10:59.210 glory of command that gives the film its title. 00:10:59.529 --> 00:11:01.490 Cabrita is essentially telling his men that the 00:11:01.490 --> 00:11:03.789 very thing they are fighting and dining for right 00:11:03.789 --> 00:11:06.009 now, holding onto fading colonial territory, 00:11:06.490 --> 00:11:08.789 is fundamentally meaningless in the grand sweep 00:11:08.789 --> 00:11:11.529 of human history. The land will always be lost 00:11:11.529 --> 00:11:14.259 eventually. To illustrate this pivot from taking 00:11:14.259 --> 00:11:16.960 to contributing, the film gives us our fourth 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:20.279 flashback, and it is a massive, jarring shift 00:11:20.279 --> 00:11:23.700 in tone. We move away from muddy battlefields 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:26.600 and into the legacy of Portuguese maritime exploration. 00:11:27.159 --> 00:11:29.399 And Cabrita pulls this narrative directly from 00:11:29.399 --> 00:11:32.289 the epic Portuguese poem, The Lusiads. Could 00:11:32.289 --> 00:11:34.549 you give a little background on what the Lusiads 00:11:34.549 --> 00:11:36.710 represents culturally before we dive into the 00:11:36.710 --> 00:11:39.529 scene itself? The Lusiads is essentially the 00:11:39.529 --> 00:11:41.830 foundational text of Portuguese literature. It 00:11:41.830 --> 00:11:44.309 was written by Luz de Camoes in the 16th century. 00:11:44.809 --> 00:11:46.350 You can think of it as Portugal's equivalent 00:11:46.350 --> 00:11:49.409 to Homer's Odyssey or Virgil's Aneed. So it's 00:11:49.409 --> 00:11:52.470 deeply mythological. Exactly. It mythologizes 00:11:52.470 --> 00:11:55.350 the real life voyages of Portuguese explorers, 00:11:55.509 --> 00:11:57.529 elevating them to the level of classical gods 00:11:57.529 --> 00:12:00.690 and heroes. It is the ultimate romanticized vision 00:12:00.690 --> 00:12:03.360 of the nation's history. Olivera takes that romantic 00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:06.379 vision and runs with it. We see the famous explorer 00:12:06.379 --> 00:12:09.159 Vasco da Gama. But we don't just see him sailing 00:12:09.159 --> 00:12:11.779 a wooden ship through rough seas. The film shifts 00:12:11.779 --> 00:12:14.460 into pure mythology. We see his journey to the 00:12:14.460 --> 00:12:17.139 mythical Isle of Love. Which is such a visual 00:12:17.139 --> 00:12:19.399 departure from the rest of the film. Vasco da 00:12:19.399 --> 00:12:21.679 Gama is aided by the classical goddess Venus, 00:12:21.960 --> 00:12:24.429 played by Teresa Menezes. because of his great 00:12:24.429 --> 00:12:27.169 deeds of exploration, his contributions to human 00:12:27.169 --> 00:12:30.669 discovery, mapping the unknown world. He is rewarded 00:12:30.669 --> 00:12:33.490 by beautiful nymphs on this lush island. And 00:12:33.490 --> 00:12:36.389 he is then shown the cosmic harmony of the entire 00:12:36.389 --> 00:12:38.669 world by the goddess Thetis, played by Leonor 00:12:38.669 --> 00:12:41.769 Silvera. It is lush, it is beautiful, it is deeply 00:12:41.769 --> 00:12:44.309 poetic. It really is. You have to appreciate 00:12:44.309 --> 00:12:46.690 the staggering contrast that Olivera is building 00:12:46.690 --> 00:12:48.750 here. On one side of the cinematic ledger, you 00:12:48.750 --> 00:12:51.350 have the brutal, muddy tense and politically 00:12:51.350 --> 00:12:55.289 isolated reality of a 1970s jungle ambush. The 00:12:55.289 --> 00:12:57.610 soldiers are dirty, terrified and fighting a 00:12:57.610 --> 00:12:59.750 war they fundamentally do not believe in. And 00:12:59.750 --> 00:13:01.450 on the other side? On the other side, you have 00:13:01.450 --> 00:13:04.370 the utopian mythological beauty of cosmic harmony 00:13:04.370 --> 00:13:07.129 and divine reward on the Isle of Love. Oliver 00:13:07.129 --> 00:13:10.190 is directly juxtaposing the ugly, violent reality 00:13:10.190 --> 00:13:12.750 of trying to hold on to an empire with the beautiful, 00:13:13.129 --> 00:13:15.409 romanticized myths that empires constantly tell 00:13:15.409 --> 00:13:17.710 themselves to justify their own existence. It 00:13:17.710 --> 00:13:20.750 is a psychological coping mechanism. It reminds 00:13:20.750 --> 00:13:23.750 me of how people build mental utopias or engage 00:13:23.750 --> 00:13:26.669 in intense escapism when their real -world environment 00:13:26.669 --> 00:13:29.830 becomes unbearable. Cabrita is showing them the 00:13:29.830 --> 00:13:32.210 poetry they are capable of while they sit waist 00:13:32.210 --> 00:13:34.389 -deep in the mud. But the campfire eventually 00:13:34.389 --> 00:13:37.590 burns down. Yeah, the night deepens and the conversation 00:13:37.590 --> 00:13:40.049 turns to something far darker and more dangerous. 00:13:40.629 --> 00:13:42.529 The soldiers start discussing this historical 00:13:42.529 --> 00:13:45.129 concept called the Fifth Empire. The Fifth Empire 00:13:45.129 --> 00:13:47.690 is a fascinating concept. This was a utopian 00:13:47.690 --> 00:13:50.519 vision. heavily championed by a 17th century 00:13:50.519 --> 00:13:53.659 Jesuit priest named Antonio Vieira. The idea 00:13:53.659 --> 00:13:56.240 was to create a harmonious global Catholic world 00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:59.539 empire, led of course by Portugal. And this vision 00:13:59.539 --> 00:14:02.580 was aggressively, almost fanatically, pursued 00:14:02.580 --> 00:14:05.179 by King Dom Sebastião, who's played in the film 00:14:05.179 --> 00:14:07.440 by Matheus Lorena. What's fascinating here is 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:09.580 that the concept of the Fifth Empire represents 00:14:09.580 --> 00:14:13.159 the ultimate pinnacle of hubris. It's the absolute 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:15.559 belief that your specific nation is destined 00:14:15.559 --> 00:14:19.509 by God or by fate to rule and harmonize the entire 00:14:19.509 --> 00:14:22.549 world. It's a dangerous mindset. Incredibly dangerous. 00:14:22.909 --> 00:14:24.710 When a leader believes they have divine right 00:14:24.710 --> 00:14:27.529 or historical inevitability on their side, they 00:14:27.529 --> 00:14:30.269 lose all sense of caution. They walk blindly 00:14:30.269 --> 00:14:32.909 into disaster because they believe failure is 00:14:32.909 --> 00:14:35.700 cosmically impossible. It's the historical equivalent 00:14:35.700 --> 00:14:39.080 of a modern startup CEO who completely ignores 00:14:39.080 --> 00:14:41.639 all market research, burns through all their 00:14:41.639 --> 00:14:44.700 capital, and alienates their staff because they 00:14:44.700 --> 00:14:46.940 are absolutely convinced they are a visionary 00:14:46.940 --> 00:14:49.360 destined to change the world. That's a great 00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:51.259 analogy. They march their company straight off 00:14:51.259 --> 00:14:53.320 a cliff because they are blinded by their own 00:14:53.320 --> 00:14:56.039 internal myth. And marching off a cliff is exactly 00:14:56.039 --> 00:14:58.440 what happens in the fifth and most catastrophic 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:01.690 flashback. Cabrucha recounts the ill -fated Battle 00:15:01.690 --> 00:15:04.809 of Alcacer -Cubierre in the year 1578. A truly 00:15:04.809 --> 00:15:07.330 disastrous moment. Dom Sebastian, chasing this 00:15:07.330 --> 00:15:10.110 divine fifth empire dream, leads an army across 00:15:10.110 --> 00:15:12.710 the sea into North Africa. But it's not a unified, 00:15:12.950 --> 00:15:15.649 disciplined force. It's a diverse, incredibly 00:15:15.649 --> 00:15:18.250 disorganized army of mercenaries and nobles. 00:15:18.710 --> 00:15:20.750 They march straight into a complete and utter 00:15:20.750 --> 00:15:23.049 massacre. It's a disaster of epic proportions 00:15:23.049 --> 00:15:25.269 that wipes out a huge portion of the Portuguese 00:15:25.269 --> 00:15:28.379 nobility in a single afternoon. And what's fascinating 00:15:28.379 --> 00:15:31.320 here is the psychological fallout of this specific 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:33.980 battle on the broader national consciousness. 00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:37.440 It was much more than just a devastating military 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:41.039 loss. Dom Sebastian, the young king, was killed 00:15:41.039 --> 00:15:43.799 in the chaos, but his body was never recovered 00:15:43.799 --> 00:15:46.059 from the battlefield. He just vanished into the 00:15:46.059 --> 00:15:48.399 dust of the massacre. Precisely. And because 00:15:48.399 --> 00:15:51.220 there was no body to mourn, there was no finality 00:15:51.220 --> 00:15:53.820 to the death. Because the trauma was so absolute, 00:15:54.299 --> 00:15:57.279 Dom Sebastian transformed from a dead king into 00:15:57.279 --> 00:15:59.899 a ghostly symbol of salvation. Which sparked 00:15:59.899 --> 00:16:02.940 a whole movement. Yes. This gave birth to a massive, 00:16:03.259 --> 00:16:05.820 enduring cultural phenomenon known as Sebastianism. 00:16:06.340 --> 00:16:08.539 It was the mystical belief that the fallen king 00:16:08.539 --> 00:16:10.779 wasn't really dead and that he would one day 00:16:10.779 --> 00:16:13.100 return through the morning fog to save the nation 00:16:13.100 --> 00:16:15.720 in its darkest hour. It's a profound, tragic 00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:18.620 form of historical denial. Instead of accepting 00:16:18.620 --> 00:16:20.879 a devastating defeat, doing the hard work of 00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:23.220 rebuilding and moving on, the entire culture 00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:26.000 clung to a ghost. You see echoes of that today 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.000 in modern cultural phenomena, where massive groups 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.940 of people refuse to accept a political loss or 00:16:31.940 --> 00:16:34.860 a societal shift. Instead of facing a painful 00:16:34.860 --> 00:16:38.600 reality, they cling to wild conspiracies or myths 00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:41.000 that a savior feeder will return to set everything 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:43.539 right. It's human nature to choose a comforting 00:16:43.539 --> 00:16:46.960 ghost over a painful truth. And that specific 00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:49.919 ghost haunts our soldiers right up until the 00:16:49.919 --> 00:16:52.720 present moment in the film. Because Olivera suddenly 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:55.139 rips us out of the 16th century and throws us 00:16:55.139 --> 00:16:58.399 violently back into the reality of 1974. The 00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:01.059 transition is so abrupt. Morning breaks over 00:17:01.059 --> 00:17:03.860 the jungle camp. The tense waiting is over. The 00:17:03.860 --> 00:17:05.420 soldiers are ambushed by the guerrillas they 00:17:05.420 --> 00:17:07.740 were sent to fight. In the ensuing chaos of the 00:17:07.740 --> 00:17:09.740 firefight, Lieutenant Cabrita is our narrator, 00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:12.500 our historian, our philosopher, is seriously 00:17:12.500 --> 00:17:15.059 wounded. The brutal reality of the colonial war 00:17:15.059 --> 00:17:17.240 finally catches up to the lofty intellectual 00:17:17.240 --> 00:17:20.039 discussions of the night before. He's evacuated, 00:17:20.240 --> 00:17:22.700 airlifted out of the jungle to a military hospital. 00:17:23.339 --> 00:17:25.480 This is where the film reaches its absolute climax 00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:28.059 and Oliveria completely blurs the lines between 00:17:28.059 --> 00:17:30.539 past and present. They give Cabrita morphine 00:17:30.539 --> 00:17:33.079 for the agonizing pain and he slips into this 00:17:33.079 --> 00:17:35.980 intense, surreal delirium. In his mind, he's 00:17:35.980 --> 00:17:38.980 no longer lying in a sterile 1970s hospital bed. 00:17:39.259 --> 00:17:41.339 Right. He imagines himself transported back to 00:17:41.339 --> 00:17:45.119 that horrific 1578 battle of Al -Qasr -Khrubir, 00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:47.920 envisioning himself as the historical figure 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:50.720 Dom Joao, wandering through the aftermath of 00:17:50.720 --> 00:17:53.359 the massacre. The boundaries of time just completely 00:17:53.359 --> 00:17:55.519 dissolve in this sequence. The cyclical nature 00:17:55.519 --> 00:17:57.619 of history that Cabrita has been lecturing his 00:17:57.619 --> 00:18:01.099 men about finally literally consumes him. It 00:18:01.099 --> 00:18:04.079 is a haunting, unforgettable sequence. While 00:18:04.079 --> 00:18:06.279 wandering through this hallucinated, corpse -strewn 00:18:06.279 --> 00:18:08.940 battlefield, Cabrita encounters a wounded knight, 00:18:09.380 --> 00:18:11.940 played by the great Portuguese actor, Rudy Carvalho. 00:18:12.039 --> 00:18:14.359 His performance here is incredible. It really 00:18:14.359 --> 00:18:18.200 anchors the scene. This knight delivers a despairing, 00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:20.539 soul -crushing monologue about the word non, 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:24.619 the word no. The night explains that no symbolizes 00:18:24.619 --> 00:18:27.359 the ultimate destruction of hope. It's the absolute 00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:30.720 end of ambition, the final unyielding wall that 00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:33.240 human endeavor inevitably crashes against. And 00:18:33.240 --> 00:18:35.619 then, after delivering this agonizing speech 00:18:35.619 --> 00:18:38.440 about the futility of it all, the wounded knight 00:18:38.440 --> 00:18:40.799 kills himself right there on the battlefield. 00:18:40.940 --> 00:18:43.119 It's so dark. It is the ultimate expression of 00:18:43.119 --> 00:18:46.559 the film's title. The vain glory of command always 00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:49.680 inevitably meets the word no. It meets the absolute 00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:52.140 limit of what is militarily and humanly possible. 00:18:52.799 --> 00:18:54.900 The night's suicide represents the death of the 00:18:54.900 --> 00:18:57.420 imperial dream itself. The realization that pushing 00:18:57.420 --> 00:19:00.440 beyond that no only brings destruction. The imagery 00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:02.759 gets even more surreal and poetic as Cabrida 00:19:02.759 --> 00:19:05.579 lies dying in the hospital ward. In his morphine 00:19:05.579 --> 00:19:08.079 delirium, he sees the spectral figure of Dom 00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:10.500 Sebastian, the ghost king of the fifth empire 00:19:10.500 --> 00:19:13.019 himself. The visual of this is chilling. The 00:19:13.019 --> 00:19:15.970 ghost is squeezing a sword so tightly. that blood 00:19:15.970 --> 00:19:18.470 begins to drip from the tip of the blade. It's 00:19:18.470 --> 00:19:21.569 this incredibly dark poetic link connecting the 00:19:21.569 --> 00:19:25.509 massive bloodshed of 1578 directly to Cabrita's 00:19:25.509 --> 00:19:29.309 own bleeding broken body in 1974. The past is 00:19:29.309 --> 00:19:31.710 literally bleeding into the present soaking into 00:19:31.710 --> 00:19:34.390 his hospital sheets. A brilliant visual metaphor. 00:19:34.730 --> 00:19:37.000 So what does this all mean? We have gone from 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:40.039 Roman invaders in Lusitania to muddy African 00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:43.039 jungles to mythological islands of cosmic harmony 00:19:43.039 --> 00:19:46.480 to bleeding ghosts. How does Olivera tie this 00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:49.079 incredibly dense, century -spanning journey together 00:19:49.079 --> 00:19:51.180 in the end? He ties it together with a stunning 00:19:51.180 --> 00:19:54.119 piece of historical irony. The film reveals that 00:19:54.119 --> 00:19:56.440 Cabrita succumbs to his wounds and dies in that 00:19:56.440 --> 00:19:59.859 hospital bed on a very specific date, April 25th, 00:19:59.859 --> 00:20:02.140 1974. The timing of that is incredible. For those 00:20:02.140 --> 00:20:04.200 who might not be intimately familiar with 20th 00:20:04.200 --> 00:20:07.279 century European history, April 25th, 1974 is 00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:09.640 the exact date of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution. 00:20:09.779 --> 00:20:12.089 The revolution that changed everything. Exactly. 00:20:12.450 --> 00:20:15.549 This was a largely bloodless military coup organized 00:20:15.549 --> 00:20:18.829 by exhausted, disillusioned military officers, 00:20:18.970 --> 00:20:22.250 much like Cabrita and his men, that overthrew 00:20:22.250 --> 00:20:25.440 the authoritarian regime back in Lisbon. It effectively 00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:28.019 ended the very colonial war that Cabrito was 00:20:28.019 --> 00:20:30.720 fighting and dying in. He dies on the exact day 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:33.319 that the war itself dies. Yes. The centuries 00:20:33.319 --> 00:20:35.900 -long cycle of imperial defeat that he was so 00:20:35.900 --> 00:20:38.660 obsessed with ends precisely as his own life 00:20:38.660 --> 00:20:41.900 ends. He becomes the final casualty of a vainglory 00:20:41.900 --> 00:20:45.599 that was expiring on that very day. As that profound 00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:48.059 realization sets in for the audience, the film 00:20:48.059 --> 00:20:50.700 closes, the credits begin to roll, and we hear 00:20:50.700 --> 00:20:53.079 a song adapted from the Louisiana playing over 00:20:53.079 --> 00:20:56.180 it all. It is a final, melancholic nod to the 00:20:56.180 --> 00:20:58.799 poetry of a nation that spent centuries chasing 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:01.460 after impossible, destructive empires. It's a 00:21:01.460 --> 00:21:04.460 masterful, deeply emotional ending that perfectly 00:21:04.460 --> 00:21:07.180 synthesizes the historical macrocosm with the 00:21:07.180 --> 00:21:09.460 personal microcosm of one soldier's life. As 00:21:09.460 --> 00:21:11.599 we wrap up this deep dive into our sources, it's 00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:13.519 worth taking a moment to just sit with what Manuel 00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:15.819 de Oliveira accomplished here. This film is a 00:21:15.819 --> 00:21:17.900 masterclass in connecting the deep past with 00:21:17.900 --> 00:21:20.240 the immediate present. Without a doubt. It reminds 00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:22.680 us that history isn't just a dry list of dates, 00:21:22.740 --> 00:21:24.680 treaties, and battles that we've memorized for 00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:27.799 high school tests. It's a living, breathing cycle 00:21:27.799 --> 00:21:31.339 of human ambition, blinding hubris, and painful 00:21:31.339 --> 00:21:34.200 failure. Cabrita and his men weren't just fighting 00:21:34.200 --> 00:21:37.359 gorillas in the jungle in 1974. They were fighting 00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:40.099 the ghosts of Viriathus, the crushed dreams of 00:21:40.099 --> 00:21:42.559 King Afonso, the delusions of Dom Sebastian. 00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:45.319 They were fighting the sheer, crushing weight 00:21:45.319 --> 00:21:47.500 of a history that refused to let go of its own 00:21:47.500 --> 00:21:50.089 myths. This raises an important question. The 00:21:50.089 --> 00:21:52.210 film is incredibly impartial in its delivery. 00:21:52.670 --> 00:21:54.890 It simply lays out the historical facts, the 00:21:54.890 --> 00:21:57.450 recurring mistakes, and the grim reality of the 00:21:57.450 --> 00:21:59.950 colonial war without moralizing or preaching 00:21:59.950 --> 00:22:01.730 to the audience. Which is an impressive feat. 00:22:01.869 --> 00:22:05.029 But in doing so, it casts a piercing, undeniable 00:22:05.029 --> 00:22:07.529 look at the absolute futility of holding onto 00:22:07.529 --> 00:22:10.730 decaying empires and outdated ideas. It forces 00:22:10.730 --> 00:22:13.170 us to look inward at how historical fatalism, 00:22:13.309 --> 00:22:15.109 the deeply held belief that we are just playing 00:22:15.109 --> 00:22:17.250 out the same doomed scripts as our ancestors, 00:22:17.970 --> 00:22:19.549 shapes the critical decisions we make today. 00:22:19.769 --> 00:22:22.390 Are we actually learning from the know of history, 00:22:22.690 --> 00:22:24.869 adapting and synthesizing like variathas fail 00:22:24.869 --> 00:22:27.529 to do? Or are we just blindly marching forward, 00:22:27.589 --> 00:22:30.329 waiting for our own modern battle of Alcacer 00:22:30.329 --> 00:22:32.869 quibir? That is exactly the kind of question 00:22:32.869 --> 00:22:35.009 this film wants you to wrestle with long after 00:22:35.009 --> 00:22:37.190 the credits roll. And it leaves us with a final, 00:22:37.230 --> 00:22:39.150 provocative thought for you to ponder on your 00:22:39.150 --> 00:22:41.589 own as you go about your day. We saw how the 00:22:41.589 --> 00:22:44.509 film contrasted the ugly muddy reality of a dying 00:22:44.509 --> 00:22:47.769 war with the beautiful romanticized myth of Vasco 00:22:47.769 --> 00:22:50.509 da Gama's Isle of Love. That contrast is key. 00:22:50.809 --> 00:22:53.420 It makes you wonder about our present day. If 00:22:53.420 --> 00:22:56.160 our modern struggles, our own corporate, political, 00:22:56.259 --> 00:22:58.799 or personal battles, are often just echoes of 00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:02.079 historical failures, our own modern, vain glories, 00:23:02.440 --> 00:23:04.799 what islands of love are we currently building 00:23:04.799 --> 00:23:07.519 in our minds? What utopian myths or comforting 00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:09.980 ghosts are we telling ourselves right now to 00:23:09.980 --> 00:23:13.059 hide the ugly realities of our own actions? It's 00:23:13.059 --> 00:23:15.160 a heavy thought. It is a heavy thought, but a 00:23:15.160 --> 00:23:17.799 necessary one to unpack, and it is exactly why 00:23:17.799 --> 00:23:20.380 exploring complex cinema like this is so rewarding. 00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:22.579 Thank you so much for joining us on this journey 00:23:22.579 --> 00:23:25.079 through time, myth, and the cycles of history. 00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:27.460 We hope you enjoyed exploring the profound depths 00:23:27.460 --> 00:23:29.980 of NO or the Vainglory of Command as much as 00:23:29.980 --> 00:23:32.200 we did. Keep questioning the narratives around 00:23:32.200 --> 00:23:34.500 you, keep exploring, and we will catch you next 00:23:34.500 --> 00:23:35.740 time for another deep dive.