Literature or the film adaptation: the debacle goes on forever on which has the most appropriate form when one art form transform into another. The written words has all the time, space and ways to present its ideas, and film scripts come exactly from this same form but many things get in the way for such idea be transformed into a motion picture: money, time, necessary ideas to show to an audience vs. what's really important to be seen, the people who'll work on it, etc. And in the end one art form overcomes the other art form and the endless and pointless criticism begins. After years of seeing films, reading books and comparing adaptations, I stopped in following this debate of which is better and focused in analyzing which art/entertaining voice felt better and revealed something to me. "Dona Eulália", however, made me see such things in a different way. Here's a short film that is basically its original work which makes difficult to provide a good comparison.
A short story written in the 1890's about the title character's funeral followed with a flashback telling her importance in one particular event. Eulália has just died and her husband (João Carlos Barroso) is a total wreck, just waiting for the priest to come to the proceedings. Meanwhile, he chronicles back to a certain event they had while the woman was still living. She wanted a new cook-maid because the previous one didn't satisfy her needs, and despite the conventions of time Eulália was the one in charge of everything, she was the boss. The husband followed her orders and went to find another cook, exactly as specified. But something there in his hiring of this new woman was wrong (sorry, it's not worth telling and it's quite humorous in fact).
The director made a perfect adaptation of a short story. It uses of calculated verbatim for its dialogue, uses of the imagery of the original story and the humored moments are quite superior to the ones presented in the original telling. When you read the story you get one image; when you watch it as in this film that same image appears but enhanced with more details (black and white cinematography; the actors and the way they play such characters). Somehow, it feels like one of the closest film adaptations ever made. It's completely true to the original material written by Arthur Azevedo. But in deeper analysis, it's quite obscure to see what Azevedo was trying to accomplish with that telling. Is the main character relieved that his wife is gone and just remembered one specific fact or he misses her so much because he can't find ways to live without her leadership on his life? The film maintains the mystery to its audience just like Azevedo did with his readers. And we wonder...In final analysis, "Dona Eulália" was a substantial work of art that validated its original form in spectacular ways, making it even better than it is. 9/10
