La balsa de piedra (The Stoneraft, Portugal, 2002)

I read a few years ago Jose Saramago’s book The Stoneraft, on which the Portuguese movie was based on. The movie was slow paced, but the book was even more so. The ideas are fantastic, but having read other books of this Nobel prize winners I can also say a bit repetitive. They are still rather enjoyable: the Iberian peninsula rapturing off from Europe and travelling towards the middle of the Atlantic ocean, the teacher who attracts birds, the never ending blue thread, the stone that goes too far when dropped in the ocean, the elder who feels the earth trembling. All nice elements in a proud separationist story disguised as a fairy tale. But it was evident that Saramago would like to see his country having a more pivotal role, a “bridge between the Old and New World.” Too bad that in movie the characters were not fleshed out much, they were just a series of sketches, the viewers were give little chance to feel much for them.