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In 1980, Mário Zambujal curated Chronicle of good cheaters, one the best seller of a band of Lisbon thieves specializing in small-scale crimes who launch an assault on the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum to steal René Lalique’s jewels, an “assault that would scare the world”. After four years, an adaptation of Fernando Lopes’ book premiered in theaters, with the physical presence of Mário Zambujal as the narrator. Forty years after the book and 36 years after the film, here comes the miniseries: the premiere is this Wednesday on RTP1, at 21h, and is already available on RTP Play.
Ukbar Filmes production, Chronicle of good cheaters is divided into eight episodes with a topic by Mário Botequilha and directed by Jorge Paixão da Costa, who also gave a leg up in writing. Zambujal himself, he told Ípsilon in August, was an “advisor” to this version that adapts and expands the intrigue of the book, having shared with the team everything he knew about his characters but hadn’t used in the work. original.
The series, shot in the summer, in the midst of a pandemic, recreates the Lisbon of the early 1980s, a moment of change, between the country’s exit from the dictatorship and its entry into the European Union. And he reconstitutes the universe of these petty criminals to the Portuguese in a distinctly different style from that which marked the surreal and inventive Fernando Lopes film.
In the cast, instead of João Perry, Lia Gama, Pedro Bandeira-Freire, Paulo de Carvalho, Nicolau Breyner, Maria do Céu Guerra and Nuno Duarte, the protagonists of the film, there are Marco Delgado, in the role of Renato, the Pacific, leader of Marlene’s band and husband, played by Maria João Bastos, Adriano Carvalho (Flávio, the Doctor), Manuel Marques (Arnaldo Figurante), José Raposo (Pedro Justiceiro), Joana Pais de Brito (Adelaide Magrinha) and Rui Unas (Silvino Bitoque). This in addition to names like the Brazilian Mónia Iozzi, Isabel Ruth, Joaquim Nicolau, Lúcia Moniz, José Fidalgo, Joana Barrios or Luís Aleluia. They all have those lovely character names created by Zambujal, inspired by his nightlife with the real Lisbon rascals of the time.
With varying degrees of success, they all wear their best clothes, invent their best accents, hair, attitudes and gingon expressions of the past to recreate a Lisbon that no longer exists. But the script still flashes today, with allusions to BES or the fact that the clown Batatinha is no longer the partner of the clown Croquet since the early 1980s. And there are still many jokes at the expense of the ignorance or relative innocence of the Tricksters.
This, judging from the first episode, in which we are introduced to the characters and their dynamics: the pacifism of Renato, who hates weapons of all kinds; Silvino’s taste for bitoques, which has gone to take his name; Arnaldo’s past in boxing; the relationship with the circus past of Renato and Marlene; the encyclopedic knowledge – and the constant desire to prove it – of Flávio, the Doctor, the relationship between Adelaide Magrinha and Carlos, who is in prison. Like the chapters of the book, each of the next episodes will focus on one member of the gang, until eventually the onslaught and its aftermath comes. And this time around we will also see the succession of events within the Gulbenkian, something that Fernando Lopes’ film has shown very obliquely.
In the first 45 minutes of this new series, where we walk back and forth in time, we see the assault as it should have happened, with the help of the bees. But we also visit the headquarters of the gang, which transforms from a Japanese bar to a Japanese bar, a house in Restelo, the cemetery where the funeral of Lina Despachada, friend of Adelaide Magrinha, and bingo games are held. If in Fernando Lopes’ film there was a mural by Ramalho Eanes, President of the Republic at the time, winking at the viewer, here we can see writings by CDU and JCP on some walls of Lisbon. But there is still a lot to discover later …
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