MovieChat Forums > Capitães de Abril (2000) Discussion > A movie about Salazar and the Colonial W...

A movie about Salazar and the Colonial War


As a portuguese citizen and a post-25/4 born, i find it appaling to state the lack of courage of the portuguese cultural/audio-visual establishment on attempting to shed a light on two of portugal´s most relevant recent history issues: The dictatorship (the "Estado Novo") that shut portugal away from the world for 50 years and its main character, Oliveira Salazar, who ruled the country as prime minister for more than 4 decades, imposing his conservative and repressive way of ruling, keeping the country on a state of under-development that still has its consequences on nowadays problems; and the portuguese vietnam, the war that was fought in the african colonies during the 60s and 70s as a wreckless and desperate effort of the fascist regime to secure the remains of the portuguese colonial empire, with costs on many lives of the local people, portuguese settlers and soldiers that were sent and forced to fight for a cause most of them didnt understand (the military draft at that time was compulsory- my father was drafted to mozambique and fought there for 4 years)and the fighters from the independentist movements, not to mention the continuous denial from the then portuguese government on pursuing any conversations with the aforementioned movements, thus shattering any possibility of a constructive aggreement and peaceful independence process for those territories...

I think it is time to make a movie about these two sad chapters on portuguese history, i believe a country needs to purge itself from some of its ghosts in order to move on and leave the burdens behind. these are two of the biggest wounds my country still bears on its soul. sure it will be hard to find the necessary funds to put up a movie about the war at the colonies, but maybe with the right appeal to gather some international funding it could be done. Id love to see a colonial war movie told by soldiers perspective- samuel fuller-platoon-style. The Salazar movie wouldnt be that expensive. I believe its about time.

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Concordo, a fórmula funcionou noutros paises, com filmes sobre outros ditadores, entre os quais: Hitler e Mussolini. Ainda para mais, era uma boa maneira de mostrar a geração pós-25 de Abril, da qual eu também faço parte, as verdadeiras diferenças entre o tempo do "Estado Novo" e o após a revolução, isto lógicamente se o argumento do filme fosse imparcial.

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I agree, the formula worked in other countries, with movies about Hitler and Mussolini. Also, it would be a good way to show to this generation the real differences between that era: "Estado Novo" and after the revolution. But has to be, logically, an imparcial movie.

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