Afonso, a French actor, has a role in a French-Portuguese co-production. When he arrives in Portugal, he wants to visit the village where his father came from before emigrating from Portugal to France before the war and where one of his aunts still lives. The director of the film in which Afonso is acting (Marcello Mastroianni) and two other actors accompany Afonso on his quest and also act as interpreters. They pass through several places where the director grew up. The director reminisces. He is especially inspired by a statue by Pedro Macao, that for him personifies human suffering. When they reach the village, Afonso’s aunt turns out to be less accommodating than expected. She has trouble accepting her ‘new’ nephew, largely because she didn’t previously know of his existence and they do not have a language in common. Afonso points out to her that the same blood flows through their veins. Finally the old aunt falls into her nephew’s arms and embraces him.Manoel de Oliveira, doyen of Portuguese film, refers in his filmic journey emphatically to the saudade, the painful melancholy memory symbolised by the road left behind by the group on its quest. Journey to the Beginning of the World is a surprisingly accessible film for De Oliveira and is also a homage to its actors, especially to Marcello Mastroianni in his last role before he died in December 1996.
