Literary and cinematographic parallels in the representation of women in the 1970s during the Spanish and Portuguese dictatorships.

Abstract

'Cartas de amor de una monja portuguesa' (1978) the film made by Grau & Arquer in Spain, uses the process of constructing a woman's sexuality to deconstruct destape films and formulate a new discourse about the representation of sexuality. It's a cinematographic retelling of the 17th century text 'Lettres Portugaises', written a few years after the literary version in 1972 penned by "the three Marias", 'Novas cartas portuguesas' (Barreno, Velho da Costa eta al). The Catalan couple of artists Jordi Grau and Gemma Arquer deconstructed the said literary text to create a film about absolute love, a film that was no less scandalous than the book and showed that parallel discourses were taking place among Portuguese and Spanish intellectuals in the 1970s, at a time of openings afther the dark years of the dictatorships in both countries.