De Obabakoak a Obaba: a adaptación caleidoscópica

Abstract

The main objective of this article, developed within the framework of film and literary studies, is to analyse Obaba (2005), the film adaptation of Bernardo Atxaga’s book Obabakoak (1989) made by Montxo Armendáriz. The script is highlighted as an intermediate tool in the transduction process from one medium to another, reclaiming its double role as book’s hypertext and film’s hypotext. Atxaga’s work presents an added difficulty of translation as it is a short story cycle, so that Armendáriz looks for alternative narrative strategies in order to emulate some of the literary procedures, eliminating and incorporating new perspectives that concern focalization, narrator’s uses and the metanarrative element. Thus, this kaleidoscopic and polyhedric adaptation builds an autonomous text that dialogues with the literary hypotext in a common universe shared by both creators.