The Crime of Father Amaro

The explosive and highly controversial 2002 film of The Crime of Father Amaro (El crimen del Padre Amaro) is set in Mexico, in a material and religious culture of this century not unlike the provincial Portugal where, as a young man, Eça de Queiros was despatched to train for the consular service. The Crime of Father Amaro is set in Leiria, a provincial cathedral city, in which the hypocrisies of churchmen were not far to seek. Father Amaro, a young man like Eça himself, with a priestly rather than a diplomatic vocation, falls into a relationship with a woman, and their tragic story unfolds with a harsh relentlessness. The situation of women, tightly swaddled in conformities yet fevered in their illusions of romance, much troubled the young author in this and later books.