Screenshots from José e Pilar (dir. Miguel Gonçalves Mendes/2010)
«The book* was written in a state of pure happiness. And perhaps this happines actually resulted from me having escaped. (...) I think it was in Lisbon. They asked me: „And now that you have everything: the Nobel prize, glory, fame, this, and that, and whatever, what more would you like?” And I answered: „Time”. Time and life to carry on with my work, with my wife. And to live as I have lived up until now. And this is all part of the way I see myself. And to continue nourishing myself and live and bring to fruition the happiness that is mine and the happiness that is ours. There is something I can repeat here... Now that I'm 86, if I had died before meeting Pilar, I would have died much older than I am now. But before I start crying, let's get back quickly to the elephant's journey. The elephant died a year after arriving in Vienna. They skinned him and cut his front feet to use them as an umbrella stand, to hold walking sticks and parasols. If this had not happened, which is historic, I wouldn't say I wouldn't have written the book but I just might not have. I might not have because when they cut off his feet, the feet that had walked thousands of kilometers to get to Vienna, deep down was a metaphor of the futility of life. We are unable to make it into anything more than the little it is, so what a sad ending... what a sad ending... And that is why this elephant owes its literary existence to this particular circumstance.»
* The Elephant's Journey