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Mexico's official entry for this year's Foreign Film Oscar nomination consideration...
For many priests, celibacy is a true vocation which liberates them... For others, it is a lifelong struggle... If celibacy was made voluntary, not only would many priests be happier, but the Church would be richer... Above all, it might decide the only way to restore the numbers of the priesthood, and that seems to me not a bad idea...
As I understand, a Catholic priest must clearly know that he belongs body and soul, with all that he is, to the church, to her task, to her mission, her work, and her destiny... He must be a public icon of strength, virility, honesty, and dedicated service...
But in 'The Crime of Father Amaro,' the top film in Mexican box-office history, Carlos Carrera shows that even a man with morals and scruples betrays the nature of his profession, mostly when he brazenly criticizes the priesthood, and questions the Catholic Church's representatives on a variety of charges like illicit love affair, corruption, drug dealing, and hypocrisy...
The story takes a liberal priest Father Amaro(Gael Garcia Bernal), protégé of a repulsive obese bishop (Ernesto Gomez Cruz), to the remote dusty village of Los Reyes to assist the older priest of the parish Father Benito (Sancho Gracia) in his daily work...
Amaro quickly realizes that virtually every fellow priest is involved in something immoral, and that his aging superior is receiving financial help from the region's drug lord for the construction of a new church-run hospital, and is secretly spending his cold nights with the proprietress of a local restaurant Augustina (Anjelica Aragón). He also discovers that Father Natalio (Damian Alcazar) is suspected of aiding the revolutionary factions in opposing the drug lords and mobsters...
Amaro's own weaknesses is put to the test when he finds himself led into temptation by Augustina 's extremely sensual teenager Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancón) a relationship that eventually goes way outside the bounds of his priestly oath... and, without any sign of inner turmoil, he embarks on a passionate affair with the devout catechism teacher...
Amalia - for whom loving a young priest serves as an extension of her deep piety - decides that the good-looking priest is the one for her and rejects her disappointed boyfriend, the aggressive reporter Ruben (Andres Montiel) who wrote an article alleging that the hospital is a front for laundering drug money...
The most over-the-top performance is provided by Luisa Huertas as the town frightening parishioner Dionisia who takes great delight in exposing heretics... This malicious lady (who, apparently, knows absolutely everything there is to know about anyone...) pretends to put coins in the collection plate but cleverly palms paper money back...
Gastón Melo plays the tender lay-assistant to the elder priest, who cares for his invalid-epileptic daughter, and carries many secrets but tells none..
"The Crime of Father Amaro" is polemical today as Martin Scorcese's 'The Last Temptation of Christ.'
The film focuses on blasphemous scenes as on a vicious priest who stops at nothing, even by continuing the lies and hypocrisy to protect his career... His value system is completely corrupted... Father Amaro's ability to stand behind his beliefs extents to nothing... His generosity and wealth of spirit becomes selfishness and bitterness... His ambitions to rise in the church hierarchy clouds his judgment...
Mexico is in the middle of a film renaissance which is wonderful if they come up with a new wave of irreverent movies thundering forward juicier targets than the church's vices... sex, abortion, abuse, witchcraft, betrayal, and political corruption...
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SPIRITUAL ECSTASY AND SEXUAL PASSION
The release of the film THE CRIME OF PADRE AMARO caused about as much of an uproar in Mexico in 2002 as the publication of the novel, written by Jose Maria Eca de Queiroz, caused in 1875. With its dangerously intertwining themes of spiritual ecstasy and sexual passion, it's not hard to see why. At the heart of the story is a young priest who wrestles in a major way with the tempting hungers of his body and the grace-filled yearnings of his spirit. It does not help that, to pursue his vocation, he is sent to a town sustained by a culture of corruption.
One thing the actor Gael Garcia Bernal does not know how to do is give a bad performance, and in the movie's title role he captures brilliantly all the agonizing ambiguity that comes with being a young adult male intent on asserting his masculinity while also serving the spiritual needs of his community. Unfortunately, his happily deluded demeanor meets with an equally intense personality in the form of Amelia, a devout young devotee acted with mesmerizing perfection by the gorgeous Ana Claudia Talancon. Amelia idolizes the young priest as a true and noble holy man whose sexuality is made sacred by his presumably pure soul. He in turn dares to drape her in a cape reserved for representations of the Madonna and recites to her from Solomon's "Song of Songs" as they seduce each other. Controversial? Better believe it.
As in the film THE HEALER (please see companion review) "The Crime of Padre Amaro" depicts sexuality and spirituality as equally powerful forces of attraction capable of producing very different results. The outcome in "The Crime of Padre Amaro" is shocking in more ways than one and well worth contemplating for a long time.
By Aberjhani
Author of I Made My Boy Out of Poetry
and Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History)
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una historia muy dura de creer
, bueno esta es una histora, que creo que le podria pasar a cualquier padre.
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Great entertainment
This movie is what film was originally destined to be. Takes you to another world, away from the day-to-day problems. Beautiful scenes, mesmerizing emotions, great acting. It also helps that you have to think about the message for yourself...
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Scared to transcend his love, because 'The people wont understand.'
The film Crimen del Padre Amaro is set in Los Reyes, Mexico in 2002. In Mexico by 2002, a continuing economic, political, and social crisis was spiraling deeper and deeper. The chaos was caused by a debt problem and the system of dependent capitalism the debt produced. "Between 1994 and 2000 average wages declined 21 percent" (Keen 317). By 2002, Mexico had become more and more dependent primarily upon the United States, its foreign export, and its investment-capital markets. Despite these setbacks, Mexicans always had something to fall back upon and to look to for support: the Catholic Church.
The film is well made and attention-grabbing. The plot is a little confusing at first, as most movies are, however it all becomes much clearer and focused as the movie continues. In the beginning of the movie, Padre Amaro is seen as the good guy, who everyone wanted to succeed; however, by the end of the film, I looked upon Padre Amaro with complete disgust. Ironically, Padre Benito, I felt, was a horrible, corrupt priest in the beginning, and by the end I liked him much more than ever before. Padre Amaro was so young and yet he ended up being the most selfish and corrupt of all the priests in the community. Crimen del Padre Amaro is a very interesting film that is entertaining and worth watching to see what modern-day rural Mexico is like.
The film Crimen del Padre Amaro shows an interesting outlook of the Catholic Church and the corruption that exists within the Church in Mexico. It is very gripping and definitely worth watching. Although there are parts that can be confusing, it is fascinating to see how rural and "backward" parts of Mexican life can be.
I would recommend this movie for anyone patient enough to read subtitles or who just simply love foreign films.
