"The Crime of Father Amaro (El Crimen del padre Amaro)" is half-way between "The Thorn Birds" and the current scandals sweeping the Catholic Church in the U.S. It examines the slippery slope of morality among priests in Mexico as each makes decisions based on perceptions of personal ambition and community needs, including inflated notions of where that intersects.
Into a rural nest of accomodationist parish priests, who have made deals with drug dealers, guerrillas and local politician (who rues that the "black politics" of the cassock-wearers is the worst), comes straight from the seminary young, hunky Gael García Bernal (of "Amores Perros" and "Y Tu Mama Tambien") with instructions from his very political bishop to read them the riot act. The young padre sees only the sins and not the community benefits, and gets attracted to the dark side, giving in to his selfish lust.
The sex is pretty plain vanilla heterosexual (the elders keep calling her a child, but she was of marriageable age with her boyfriend, so I guess they're using that as a synonym for virgin), compared to the current scandals. What makes it different from the usual soap operas is showing how the sensuality of the church's rituals heightens the sinners' attraction, as he wraps her in the robes of the Virgin and recites "The Song of Songs" for seduction, while she (a "wafer-eater" as her ex-boyfriend's father mocks her) is specifically in love with him as a priest. When he consults about abortion morality with the liberationist theologian to whom he has brought excommunication orders, he gets a blank look and a practical response: "That's not an issue in this parish. Is it in yours?"
But these serious issues are overwhelmed by the soap opera (the movie is based on an 1875 novel), and we mostly see "Amaro"s passions and desperate, self-serving actions, like praying for a miracle to save his career, not his character changes.
(originally written 12/16/2002)
Into a rural nest of accomodationist parish priests, who have made deals with drug dealers, guerrillas and local politician (who rues that the "black politics" of the cassock-wearers is the worst), comes straight from the seminary young, hunky Gael García Bernal (of "Amores Perros" and "Y Tu Mama Tambien") with instructions from his very political bishop to read them the riot act. The young padre sees only the sins and not the community benefits, and gets attracted to the dark side, giving in to his selfish lust.
The sex is pretty plain vanilla heterosexual (the elders keep calling her a child, but she was of marriageable age with her boyfriend, so I guess they're using that as a synonym for virgin), compared to the current scandals. What makes it different from the usual soap operas is showing how the sensuality of the church's rituals heightens the sinners' attraction, as he wraps her in the robes of the Virgin and recites "The Song of Songs" for seduction, while she (a "wafer-eater" as her ex-boyfriend's father mocks her) is specifically in love with him as a priest. When he consults about abortion morality with the liberationist theologian to whom he has brought excommunication orders, he gets a blank look and a practical response: "That's not an issue in this parish. Is it in yours?"
But these serious issues are overwhelmed by the soap opera (the movie is based on an 1875 novel), and we mostly see "Amaro"s passions and desperate, self-serving actions, like praying for a miracle to save his career, not his character changes.
(originally written 12/16/2002)