Duas Horas Menos um Quarto Antes de Cristo

PORTUGUESE AFRICA, 1973. Slowly, we have plenty of time: the words of the Second Lieutenant to the small band of soldiers he commands. A land mine exploding on the forest track, the patrol lost in the forest. The death of a soldier, shots in the night. Involved in a war in which the enemy is never seen, the mud-splattered soldiers methodically carry out the final pilgrimage without bitterness or glory, the tame farewell of a generation to five centuries of Portuguese presence in Africa: a story of war.

A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.