Saturday, October 24, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/FILM-PORTUGAL: Captains of April 1974 as Midwives to Democracy
Mario Osava
- The military captains who overthrew Portugal’s dictatorship on Apr. 25, 1974, subverted the nature of a coup d’etat, turning it into an instrument of democracy.
The military protagonists of the coup did not take power and they did not play a role in building the new government regime. They were simply midwives to freedom, opening the doors for Portugal to finally enter the 20th century after 48 years of political and moral authoritarianism.
That is the approach of the film ‘Capitaes de abril’ (Captains of April), which premiered this month in Rio de Janeiro. It marks the directorial debut of María Medeiros, a Portuguese actress known for her roles in US films like Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’.
Her film is not a documentary, nor is it an attempt at a faithful historical reconstruction. This French-Portuguese co-production utilises fictional elements to create a work that focuses on the emotions contained in the decisive events of Apr. 25, 1974.
As the axis of her version of what happened, Medeiros chose the actions of Captain Maia, inspired by one of the chiefs of the rebellion whom she has admired, she confesses, ever since she experienced the impacts of the ‘Revoluçao dos Cravos’ (Carnation Revolution) as a child.
In the film, it is Maia who incites the troops of his barracks on the outskirts of Lisbon early in the morning of Apr. 25, leading them, with tanks and armoured vehicles, to surround the government palaces in the centre of the capital.
Tired of killing and of seeing their friends die in the independence wars in Portugal’s African colonies, the military joined the Armed Forces Movement (MFA – Movimento das Forças Armadas) en masse, and the population took to the streets to celebrate the end of the dictatorship.
Medeiros employs humour as well as tension to underscore the ambivalence of the captains, rebellious but still attempting to respect the military hierarchy, turning to force while rejecting violence.
As a result, the coup cost very few lives, limited to the civilians who were attacked by the dictatorship’s police who refused to surrender.
Comic situations emphasise this ambiguity. In ‘Captains’, a column of tanks on its way to the overthrow stops to wait for the green light before crossing a street.
Captain Maia delays the coup, buying time for a higher-ranking officer to arrive, in this case Gen. Antonio de Spinola, to accept the surrender of the deposed Marcelo Caetano.
The moment of greatest dramatic tension is when the rebels find themselves face to face with tanks driven by dictatorship loyalists on a central avenue of Lisbon. Maia want to dialogue, but the brigadier in command of the government troops is resolved in his decision to confront the insurgents.
But his orders to fire on the unarmed captain fall on deaf ears. The backing of the rest of the soldiers for the Carnation Revolution seals the defeat of the generals, who had indicated they would continue the wars in Africa.
The image Medeiros paints of the rebels is one of confusion and scant organisation, with touches of exaggeration in order to make audiences laugh and to build suspense.
The democracy and justice that the captains sought for Portugal are subjected to circumstances, but the joy of the people in the streets is more than enough compensation.
Another protagonist of the film is Captain Manuel, who led the take-over of a radio station in order to broadcast the MFA’s manifesto. The action is successful, but is threatened at several points by the troops’ own ridiculous mistakes.
Two stories of romance add tenderness to ‘Captains’. One involves a soldier who is about to be sent to war against African independence forces.
His girlfriend, to whom he had bid farewell the day before, finds him in the streets and places a carnation in the barrel of his gun – a gesture symbolising the interconnection of the people and the military in Portugal’s infamous April, and a real-life icon of the times.
The young lovers’ honeymoon begins in the street, though in the privacy offered by the interior of an armoured car.
Captain Manuel, however, experiences quite different matters of the heart. Married and with a lovely six-year-old daughter, the relationship has been undone by his participation in the occupying forces in Africa.
His participation in the MFA absolves him in the eyes of his wife(played by María Medeiros herself), but he finds he has already lost her. She has fallen love with an imprisoned student who has been tortured by the dictatorship’s police.
The two captains, Maia and Manuel, are nearly lynched by a crowd of civilians who momentarily confuse them with agents of the dictatorship.
In that final scene, the director highlights her critical view that the heroes of Apr. 25 were soon forgotten and thrown “on the rubbish heap of history”.
The film ends on a melancholy note as the audience is told that Manuel died, succumbing to depression and alcohol, and that Maia also died young, victim of an unspecified illness.
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