O Crime do Padre Amaro
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O Crime do Padre Amaro ("The Crime of Father Amaro") is a novel by the 19th-century Portuguese writer José Maria Eça de Queiroz. It was first published in 1875 to great controversy.
The novel tells the story of a young priest, Amaro, who serves as diocesan administrator at Leiria. His illicit love affair with Amélia ends in tragedy; she becomes pregnant and dies in a back-street abortion. The church covers up the affair, quietly moving Amaro to a new parish.
An English translation by Nan Flanagan appeared in 1962 under the title The Sin of Father Amaro. The novel has also been translated as The Crime of Father Amaro, published in the UK in 2003 by Dedalus in a new version by Margaret Jull Costa as part of its Europe 1992-2004 programme.
[edit] Film and television adaptations
In 2002, Carlos Carrera directed a Spanish-language version of O Crime do Padre Amaro (El crimen del padre Amaro) in Mexico. It starred Gael García Bernal as Father Amaro and was greeted with public outrage in Mexico, where Christian groups called for it to be banned. In 2002, it was one of the Best Foreign Language Film Nominees at the 75th Academy Awards. The film was criticized in Portugal as insufficiently faithful to the novel. It was said that Mexico in 2002 has little or nothing to do with the 19th century context in the novel; in addition, Amaro's motivation is different. In the novel his education steers him into the priesthood, whereas in the film he chooses to follow this path himself and has some anticlerical views. Finally, Eça's Amélia is older (aged 23) than her film equivalent.
In 2005, Carlos Coelho da Silva directed a television movie O Crime do Padre Amaro in Portugal. This was a low quality production sponsored by SIC television channel. Padre Amaro (Jorge Corrula) and Amélia (Soraia Chaves) are the main characters, and sex and nudity are main ingredients. According to the IMDB, it became the most successful Portuguese movie in Portuguese box office history. (January 2006)
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