A incerteza em Vale Abraão: o encontro entre Manoel de Oliveira e Agustina Bessa-Luís

Abstract

The objective of this work is to reflect on the novel Vale Abraão, by Agustina Bessa-Luís and the film of the same name, by filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira. We sought to demonstrate some important literary influences of the writer Camilo Castelo Branco on the writing of Agustina Bessa-Luís and on the cinema of Manoel de Oliveira that can be seen in Vale Abrão despite this being a 20th century novel and, Agustina, as a contemporary author, brings characteristics in his writing of the disarticulation of postmodern institutions. The work thus reveals itself to be contemporary and, for this reason, accompanied by its uncertainties; the use of a neo-baroque mosaic that comes from literature to describe the articulations of society, all, but with a Camilo’s bias. It was also investigated that Camilo’s influences on Agustina contributed to the main character of the novel Ema Cardeano Paiva distancing herself from the French character Emma Bovary from the novel Madame Bovary by writer Gustave Flaubert, making Vale Abrão a unique novel and not just a mere rewriting of the novel by Flaubert. This research therefore carried out an analysis of the importance of memory and remembering as a reflection of life, therefore, uniting cultural aspects such as the representation of houses as home and the effective performance of these as characters by Agustina Bessa-Luís in Vale Abrão, reflecting a safe place amidst the chaos of contemporary disarticulation and all its uncertainties arising from this scenario. Subsequently, the use of the water element as a representation of birth, death and femininity was also analyzed, highlighting the female character, Ema, who mixes with the waters of the Douro River; river as a very important symbol of the novel itself and of the character Ema Cardeano Paiva