A modern version for Hemingway

Wanderlene Magalhães

Many literacy works have been adapted to film versions. These versions usually try to represent faithfully the intention of author proposed in the book, following the original story. This work can be a little difficult because it is not so easy to represent all the details and all events of the referred story in just some minutes or hours. Many times this adaptation gains new characteristics and changes the context. That is what happened with a film version of a short story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway.

In a film version directed by Yurity Mikitchenko and Sean Brown, Hills Like White Elephants gains a modern depiction. As the adaptation occurs in a modern context we could not see many aspects of the original short story. This difference is clearly seen in the costumes of characters, setting and, of course, use of modern instruments. On the other hand, the version follows faithfully the discourse of the story. Despite of not having a very much emotional representation, the actors’ performances are able to convey the state of anxiety of the couple and the lack of ability to communicate with each other that one senses when we read the story. In the beginning the couple is sitting in opposite banks and the girl prefers to listen music in her cell phone. This makes clear that the couple do not have a true complicity of ideas at that moment.

Another point that follow Hemingway’s short story is that the real subject of the discussion is not clearly explicit in the conversation. And also the decision if the girl is accepting the arguments of the man sounds uncertain as it does to the reader. So, although this film version had lost many aspects of the written story, it is a good adaptation of Hemingway’s short story.

#wanderlenemagalhães #hemingway #hillslikewhiteelephants #piquetcarneiro #ufcvirtual