How meta can a film get? Miguel Gomes and Maureen Fazendeiro tried to find out with The Tsugua Diaries. Shot in 16mm during the lockdown, the film follows three young people in rural Portugal as they hang out and attempt to build a greenhouse for butterflies. At least that’s how it starts. Gomes, best known for his sprawling three part adaptation of The Arabian Nights, has to chosen here to make an experimental and strangely humorous film. The joke, though, seems to be on the viewer. If, that is, he can resist The Tsugua Diaries’ soporific effects. This is a slow film that delights the audience with small discoveries and tongue in cheek humour, but it is by no means the easiest film to watch.
The film opens with the trio, Crista, Carloto and João, as they dance to Frankie Valli’s 1972 hit, The Night while multicoloured lights shine behind them. It is weirdly nostalgic. The initial impression is that this is a period piece set in the 60s. Apart from it being shot in 16mm, the colours, the shots and the lighting all combine to make this look like a pre-Easy Rider film like 1967’s The Trip. Not much happens, though. The group has the same conversation – and I mean the exact same conversation – several days in a row. And then we start to notice oddities. First of all, there are coloured cards that indicate which day of the story we’re watching, but they’re counting down. We’re moving in reverse chronological order. This helps to make some sense at least of the strong 60s vibe the film opens with.
And then a man appears with a mask. And it’s the sort of mask you’ve probably worn yourself recently. The mind tries to make sense of this: maybe the man is spraying herbicide and needs such a mask? But that makes no sense. And then, gradually, we figure it out. More crew members appear. A boom mic and a camera. We’re watching an experimental film about making an experimental film. The characters, Crista, Carloto and João don’t make much sense and up to this point haven’t done anything interesting. And when the crew appear, the actors start to complain about the nonsensical nature of their roles. The director, though, is happy with their performances. This is a painfully long and painfully realistic scene. And, to our chagrin, it turns out to be one of many such scenes. There are long arguments about one actor breaking Covid protocol by going surfing on his day off. We watch in astonishment as one actor debates with a cook about whether to slice an onion or cut it into cubes. And then we get to watch her slicing up the onion.
To anyone who’s ever been on a film set, all of this will be familiar territory. One of the defining features of working on a set is the overwhelming tedium and boredom one has to face. You might be on set for more than 12 hours, but a a lot of that time will be spent sitting and waiting for the lighting department to get things ready.
And despite the subtle humour of this film, its overwhelming emotion is boredom. That isn’t necessarily meant as a criticism, but it does make this a challenging film. It is in film terms what atonal music is compared to tonal music. The American composer John Adams wrote in his autobiography, Hallelujah Junction, that while listening to a John Cage performance, he became bored, then annoyed. Then he realized that boredom was, “an element of the experience,” and that, “Cage was inviting us to open our ears and minds and not to be bothered if our attention periodically wandered.” I think this is same spirit in which we have to approach The Tsugua Diaries. It was obviously not meant to be a blockbuster . But it certainly takes us into a headspace that few other films can. We move from a languorous summer with friends and too much time on our hands, to the dull but pleasant community of a film making crew.
My guess is that the emotional heart of this film lies in nostalgic memories of a summer spent with friends with nothing much to do. At the time, there may have been moments of boredom. But looking back, adults realize that these were some of the best times. It was those endless summer days that created the sorts of bonds that adults can rarely make. The cast and crew of a film, too, might experience interminable hours with nothing much to do. But they are a sort of community – especially when sequestered because of a pandemic – and are likely to look back fondly on the memory of making the film. The boredom will be forgotten, but the camaraderie will stay with us.
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.