It’s been
how many years?
he asked
Rui Pina Coelho
2011

Four Portuguese friends, Jaime, Alice, Cláudio and Helena. Graduates: a diploma in one hand, a passport in the other. They’re looking for work, inventing professions or working for themselves. They have precarious jobs, temporary dreams, used clothes, old computers, imported books, good music and suitcases. They have one foot here and one foot there. They’re the gray mass that gets lost – but who also can’t do without the beautiful Portuguese sun and a nice grilled fish. They are four friends who wouldn’t swap the Portuguese beaches for anything – but who have had enough of it all.
It’s been how many years, he asked, it’s about looking for a place, it’s about time passing, it’s about food and the gas bill, it’s about children, the price of diapers and school fees. It’s about the end of the world. It’s about those who, despite being in their thirties, still hold out hope that Guardiola might call them up to play left-back for Barça. It’s about that John Lennon quote, “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans”. And it’s inspired by John Osborne’s text, Look Back in Anger (with various unmarked plunders from José Palla e Carmo’s translation, O tempo e a ira, Lisbon: Minotauro, s/d), written at a time when there seemed to be no more causes worth fighting for.