A Portuguese Farewell.
Tomorrow I participe in a one-day event on Portuguese cinema and the Carnation Revolution held at University College London and co-organized by the University of Coimbra. I am thankful for the invitation and I would like to express my gratitude to André Rui Graça. Further information about the papers and the speakers may be found here.
Here is an outline of my talk, which is titled “From Us to Us: A Portuguese Farewell in 1980s Portugal”:
The central topic of A Portuguese Farewell (Um Adeus Português, 1986), directed by João Botelho, is memory in Portuguese society — more precisely, the necessity of memory and its sparse presence in 1980s Portugal. The film alternates scenes in the past, set in 1973 during the colonial war in Africa, with scenes in the present, set in 1985 in rural and urban areas of Portugal. A soldier dies in the war and the family gathers twelve years after his death. This study is anchored in four thematic concerns that are addressed in the twelve segments of the film: the colonial war, class relations, labour, and religion. My analysis emphasises the context of the film, interpreting it as a meditative depiction of the difficulty of coming to grips with the Portuguese nation’s history and the suffering of its people in a particular time. A Portuguese Farewell was released in the year when Portugal entered the European Economic Community. Such a moment served the narrative of Portugal as transitioning from an Atlantic past to an European destiny. It, once again, eluded the much needed conversation between us, from us to us, as Portugal integrated a capitalist structure of dominion that was further developed within the European Union. For Botelho, the colonial war had become history and therefore could be reflected upon. Influenced by the materialist filmmakers Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, the director uses the constant back and forth between a distant past (in dense black and white) and an opaque present (in postcard-like colour) only to reveal an absence in between them: the 25th April Revolution of 1974, an event connected with the end of the war as well as with profound social and economic changes that opened the possibility of a different future. The revolution is not yet history.
