Agnès Pellerin, integrated researcher at INET-md, hired by the project EXIMUS, authors the article “Grândola, Vila Morena, entre histoire et mémoire : une chanson de révolution dans le cinéma révolutionnaire portugais“, published in open access in the most recent thematic number of the online journal Reflexos – Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde lusophone, directed by Sandra Teixeira and Georges Da Costa under the title “50 ans après le 25 avril : mémoire(s) et représentations de la Révolution des Oeillets et de l’immigration portugaise en France“.
Abstract
Grândola, Vila morena, a song used as radio code by the military during the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, became a direct tool of the armed coup d’état, even though its original aim was not directly subversive. This slow, peaceful song thus became an emblematic political song of the 20th century, yet rather little studied, until recently, in the academic field.
How did revolutionary cinema (Robert Gonçalves) – militant films made during the event or shortly afterwards, rich in archive footage – contribute to its appropriation into the collective memory?
The presence of Grândola, Vila morena in the soundtracks of these films seems self-evident. Yet its characteristics, particularly its rhythm and internal repetitions, make Grândola contrast with the “narrative shock” (Trindade) represented by the overthrow of the dictatorship. It therefore constitutes a challenge for revolutionary cinema, giving rise to memorial and militant scenarios that integrate it freely, in heterogeneous forms. In these films, which are associated with a ‘real cinema’, how does Grândola, Vila morena play a pivotal role between history and memory?