What's a poor, hormone-driven 16-year-old girl gonna do when
she meets the drop-dead handsome priest, newly assigned to her
parish in a town on the outskirts of Mexico City? If drop-dead fits
into your answer, you would not be incorrect. Carlos Carrera's
strongly anti-clerical film based on an 1875 Portuguese novel of
Maria Eca de Queiroz is yet another contribution to the almost
annual church-bashing fete which this year includes Costa-Gavras
boldly assertive "Amen" (about the refusal of the pope to speak
out against the Holocaust).
The misdeeds of the church officials in the town of Los Reyes
are in no way comparable to the World War 2 failings of the
church father, but considering the extent of the corruption, one
which pervades a large proportion of the town's priests including
the obese bishop, Carrera's indictment is a powerful one.
The title character is Father Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal), a 24-
year-old idealist who along with his fellow bus passengers is
robbed by a gang of gun-toting highwaymen and who on
disembarking promptly gives his elderly seat mate some money
to start his business. Father Amaro will prove to me no tragic
hero but a young innocent, believing himself to be in position to
take over the small but well-endowed parish upon the coming
retirement of Father Benito (Sancho Gracia)-provided that he does
his job and is recommended by Benito to the bishop (Ernesto
Gomez Cruz). Amaro is astonished to find that the church
bureaucracy is in the pocket of drug lords who donate money to
the church, pesos which are freely accepted on the grounds that
there's nothing wrong with putting "bad money into good deeds."
That's the least of Amaro's difficulties. When the town guapa,
16-year-old old Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancon), makes goo-goo
eyes, Amaro's lust gets the better of him, and why not? The guy
he is scheduled to replace, Father Benito, has been enjoying a
long-term affair with Amelia's mom, Sanjuanera (Angelica Aragon),
but informs his protege that his sexual relationship is "not the
same thing" as the young man's.
"El Crimen del Padre Amaro" shows the clerics violating the
letter and spirit of the Ten Commandments by fornicating,
consorting with thieves, and threatening excommunication against
the likes of a "liberation" priest who caters to a communal group
called "guerrillas" by the bureacrats. When Amelia's disappointed
boyfriend Ruben exposes the money laundering, Father Amaro
carries a message from the bishop threatening to call a boycott of
the newspaper's sponsors unless they put a false, large-print
retraction of the charges on the front page.
"El Crimen del Padre Amaro" is now Mexico's biggest box-office
hit of movies turned out by the homegrown industry, following on
the heels of its principal actor's two other stunners, the violent
"Amores Perros" and the erotic "Y Tu Mama Tambien." We
suspect that the satiric element is not the principal reason for the
popularity, but rather the wallowing in sex that actually undercuts
the parody in the service of big box office. Though the eroticism is
hardly as kinky as that featured in, say, "Femme fatale," it serves
to bring in the crowds, and Carrera satisfies his audience all
around with a conclusion that one-ups even Moliere's anticlerical
play "Tartuffe." If you want to find morally bankrupt people, you'll
find them, of course, among the drug lords and criminals. To
witness deeds of immorality pervasive in the very group that we
trust to raise us spiritually is the movie's edge, and Carrera finds
his truth dramatically and credibly with the help of a crackerjack
team of performers.
Copyright © 2002 Harvey Karten
out of 4
