O Crime do Padre Amaro

This is not the best Portuguese movie ever made. And definitely not even a good movie. So what is all the fuss about? First, this was made for Portuguese audiences. It is a Portuguese story, the actors are known faces from television, the music can be heard in the radio. And with the help of a television network, a lot of publicity was made about it. Unfortunately, not for a good cause.

The story runs around the new priest in town, and how he falls into the temptations around him, becoming one of those he thought he would never be. But the adaptation of the 19th century novel does an effort to be "modern" and "cool", adding rap, street gangs, hungry news reporters and mafia-like businesses to the screenplay. And too much naked bodies.

And then unnecessary secondary stories take too much time from the primary action, so prepare for a really fast ending. Maybe that's good, you can go home earlier than you thought!!

The film is nothing else than an exposition of nudity. Has anyone noticed that all three main female characters appear naked? It looks like the only winning bet for Portuguese filmmakers is to include some (if not a lot) of nudity of the local stars, together with slang which otherwise, in the nowadays Portuguese society, is repulsed with horror. If you watch advertising for Portuguese films at Portuguese TVs, they all have included a "hot" scene from the movie. I'm not saying, by any means, that Portuguese society is alienated; just that the movie industry does not seem capable of finding others ways of success. Going back to the movie... There is nothing left from the spirit of the book, which is a masterpiece. The film could have been a good one, had there been emphasized the real idea of the book (of actuality at any time) and not the strictly erotic part. It had almost all the ingredients... but the "chef" was awful...

I saw this film yesterday on TV. I had just finished reading the book in which the movie was supposedly based. In the opening credits it said "This is a free adaptation of Eça de Queirós' novel". I should have turned off my TV at that moment.

Vera Sacramento's idea of "free adaptation" is turning a story about Church's influence over people and the hypocrisy of people claiming morality at the end of the 19th century into a story about sex. In fact, the only thing she adopted from the novel was the sex part, which was only mildly referred in Eça de Queirós' novel. And, of course, the name of some characters.

As of the characters, in the novel, Amélia and João Eduardo were victims of church's influence. Amélia was seduced by Father Amaro and all the time she was controlled by him. João Eduardo, her fiancé, was excommungated by the priests, because he dared to criticize them. In this movie, Amélia seduces every one she meets and Father Amaro is just another victim. João Eduardo is a dealer of drugs and illegal weapons.

Vera Sacramento has turned a novel which criticized moral costumes of an epoch and turned it into just another movie with lots of (bad) sex. Even worse, her story was completely empty of ideas. Two wasted hours! Eça de Queirós surely did not deserve this.

The script is extremely poor, the acting is lamentable, the soundtrack is annoying. This film is an incredibly poor adaptation of Eca's book, which unsuccessfully tries to transpose it to the 21st century. It simply doesn't work - not because it is not possible to adapt Eca's classic to a modern environment, but simply because nothing in the film works: the twists are predictable, it heavily relies on conventionally-beautiful naked body and simulated sex and on clichés (such as the gay characters, the gangsters). The plots and characters are disjointed. It tries to portray a multicultural modern Portugal, but the attempt is also flawed, leaving the viewer lost.

This film is a clear example of what makes contemporary Portuguese cinema absolutely disgusting. Moved by sentiments that are certainly anticlerical and atheistic, Carlos Coelho da Silva decided to bring to the cinema one of the most controversial and famous novels by Eça de Queirós, who was not sympathetic to the Catholic Church, but who gifted us with a writing of truly unparalleled beauty. Let me clarify this: the problem with this film is not to be against priests, but to completely distort Queirós work. It's a film without context, just a pretext for sizzling erotic scenes, worthy of a pornographic film, that turn a priest into a kind of "confessional sexual athlete". Why? Because sex sells. Just that.

The action of the film completely contradicts the book, so we can say that any similarity is almost coincidental. With the exception of the title and most of the characters, the film does not take advantage of the excellent material of Queirós, preferring to invent a new story in our time, where sex scenes fit better. The most reputable actors are there, but always in supporting roles (Nicolau Breyner, Ana Bustorff, Nuno Melo, José Wallenstein, Diogo Morgado, etc.), leaving the main characters for two weaker colleagues. Jorge Corrula has an angelic aspect in the cloth and Soraia Chaves may not have any talent but she looks great naked, and this was widely used in the film.

Needless to say, in an ignorant country like my dear Portugal, such a film was a huge blockbuster. Sex sells... sex involving priests sells even more. Did people read the book to compare, and did they also like good Queiros literature? I doubt that much. A pair of breasts are more appealing than a six-hundred-page book. A national shame.