Abraham's Valley

A film that, due to its dominant atmosphere and boring slowness, seems like a funeral service.

My opinion about Portuguese cinema has never been the best. I have always considered that, despite the beauty of the places in our country and the quality of the actors and technical personnel, there are no directors capable of doing something that is, at the same time, minimally palatable to the general public and technically well done. Either Portuguese directors opt for a vain and irritating academicism, and make films that never leave the festivals and end up forgotten, or they surrender to the money-making machine and release idiotic comedies with low-level jokes.

This film, considered by many to be one of the best made by Manoel de Oliveira, is a good example of the academic, dull and unintelligible film I mentioned above. I believe the film was a delight at festivals, and I don't think it's to be despised that the film has won awards and some good reviews in Tokyo and São Paulo... but the fact is that, after almost thirty years, it's a film forgotten, even by nerds.

For the film, Oliveira asked writer Agustina Bessa-Luís for an original script. Without any kind of demerit, the writer gave her a story that, in essence, is an adaptation of “Madame Bovary”, which passes through the Douro scenarios and is inspired by them to obtain a certain literary lyricism. It will certainly be an interesting book, but it is not a good story for the cinema, and Oliveira ignored that. Watching the movie and reading a book are the same thing, thanks in part to a narrator who doesn't shut up for a minute and who seems to be reading aloud.

The story follows Ema, the main character, from youth to death. Contrary to what many argue, I think the character is not an innocent teenager, despite her young age: she knows she is very beautiful, she knows the effect this has on men and seeks him out, having fun like a Lolita. The rest of the film is an anachrony, with the character...