Abraham's Valley

Manoel de Oliveira's 1993 Portuguese film is adapted from Agustina Bessa-Luís's novel, which itself draws on Madame Bovary. Ema is the daughter of a wealthy family whose beauty creates a kind of disturbance around her; she is married young to Carlos, a doctor and a friend of her father, and they move to a house in the Douro valley. He loves her but the relationship stays distant, and over time she takes up with others and does not much trouble to hide it. The film does not dramatise this; a narrator relays events as though reading a novel, the actors speak the text rather than to the camera, and the scenes hold in long takes. The Douro landscape and the river are the constant background. It runs close to three hours at a deliberately heavy pace. It screened in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes. Who it's for: viewers who like literary adaptation and formally demanding cinema. Who it's not for: anyone expecting an emotional account; the film keeps its distance.