El crimen del Padre Amaro

Plot synopsis:
El Crimen Del Padre Amaro is a film based off the 19th century Portuguese novel O Crime do Padre Amaro, recreated with a modern touch. Although critics have scolded this movie for not precisely recreating the novel, director Carlos Carrera does a great job at bringing the novel into a modern context and highlighting issues to which current audiences around the world can relate. Carrera created a film that reaches international audiences by establishing a Hollywood texture with continuity editing and a smooth, polished finish. Yet by focusing the film on sociopolitical corruption and prevalent issues in Mexico, Carrera also catches the attention of the national audience. In a primarily Catholic country, the clear themes of corruption and hypocrisy within the Church resounded and created undisputable tensions throughout the nation, which even inspired the Church to advocate against viewing of the film. Padre Amaro serves as a symbol of hypocrisy in the context of Catholicism and the issues of the class system in Mexico. He begins as young priest inspired to do right under the laws of the Church; however, throughout the film he is continuously challenged by pressures of money, society, and issues of celibacy. This film consists of most indoor scenes creating a sense of discretion throughout the film, highlighting the theme of scandals, secrets, and hypocrisy. The film creates an impactful sense of realism of the difference in lifestyles and class systems. Poverty in rural towns is contrasted with the wealth of the church through the mise-en-scene as portrayed in costumes, barren houses in poor conditions, shots of the underdeveloped town in the country side, and amongst all of these there lies a beautiful and ornate church. While in most Latin American films the country side is portrayed as fostering a happy, rooted, soul-fulfilling lifestyle, Carlos Carrera shows the audience a realistic view of how rural life can contain the same corruption and scandals that are normally seen to take place in urban environments.
All in all, this film does a terrific job at leaving the viewer with a clear message. Many distinct concepts can be pulled from this film, from corruption and injustice of politics and religious bodies, to personal struggles with human passions and the effects of society on a persons life.

Tags: murder, storytelling, melodrama

Review:
From a novel by the 19th century Portuguese well-known novelist Eça de Queirós, the Mexican director Carlos Carrera made this good movie in which to the main ingredients present at all times everywhere (lust, the temptations of the flesh haunting Catholic priests, religious hypocrisy, love and bourgeois prejudices) he added specific Mexican ones of our times such as the fight for independent journalism, drug traffic, complicity of authorities and the fight of the peasants for dignity, freedom and a better life.
I don't know if people from around the world will understand the impact it had here in Mexico, but here are some hints: a) almost everybody in Mexico is catholic, b) Mexican catholics have an enormous respect for priests.So, imagine the chaos when a film is about a priest, Father Amaro (García Bernal), who falls in love with a teenage girl (Talancón) and is under the supervision of the local priest, Father Benito (Gracia), who is involved with one of the most wanted drug dealers in the country.
While the acting was passable, the story did not move along in a provocative enough manner to thoroughly captivate its audience-- in simple terms, the movie was somewhat slow.What is interesting to notice is the reaction that the public-- especially the Catholic public-- has had to this film.
It is on these superficial levels that Padre Amaro is decried as a criminal of the faith by the viewing public, but lust is not this priest's true crime.Central to the film's controversy is the corruption that propels the church.
The crime of Padre Amaro is not so much that he acted upon his human impulses as that he accepts the corruption of the church by participating in its lies and creating lies of his own.Unfortunately, this film's only exposé is not the corruption of the church, which has become more and more evident in recent times, but the faithful church body's willingness to pretend that none of this goes on.
If you read this novel today, besides being marveled by its iconoclast wit, powerful story-telling, sharply drawn multi-layered characters and magnificent style, you will no doubt be startled by Eça's volcanic attacks on the Catholic clergy's corrupt morals and behavior in late 1800s Portugal.Well, this Mexican adaptation is a total waste of the novel's story and shocking power, beginning with the bad idea to transpose it to modern times -- how can anyone relate to the impact of Eça's novel when sex scandals in the Catholic Church have become daily news?
Anyhow, this is no excuse for the film's soap-opera approach, lame adaptation, cardboard characters, unimaginative direction, bland acting (Bernal, Talacón, though they make a beautiful couple) or sheer overacting (most of the cast, excepting the good jobs by Damián Alcázar and Angélica Aragón).A major disappointment from director Carrera, writer Leñeros, and actor García Bernal, who was very interesting in "Amores Perros" and "Y Tu Mamá También" (and since then progressively déjà vu), but is totally lost here, his expression telling us he didn't get the first idea about Amaro's cynicism, passion, ambition and growing immorality.
Based on an 1875 Portuguese novel by Eca de Quieros, The Crime of Father Amaro, the new film from director Carlos Carrera, has been updated to modern Mexico.
Amaro then has an affair with the reporter's ex-girlfriend, Sanjuanera's young daughter Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancón), and in an awkward scene, the priest drapes her in a blue robe that has been designed for the local church's statue of the Virgin Mary.
Despite these setbacks, Mexicans always had something to fall back upon and to look to for support: the Catholic Church.The Catholic Church is the main focus in the movie Crimen del Padre Amaro.
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.
In 2002, in a small town in Mexico, Father Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal), a young and promising priest, is assigned for that parochial.
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.
It does not help that, to pursue his vocation, he is sent to a town sustained by a culture of corruption.One thing 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.
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, which will not be revealed here.
In my opinion, the best thing about El Crimen del Padre Amaro is Vicente Leñero's script - updating a story from 1875 without losing the magic scenes created by Eça de Queiroz so long ago.
Again, by updating the old Portuguese story to a contemporary Mexico and inserting current issues like the relation between church and drug dealers, El Crimen del Padre Amaro raises some relevant questions about celibate, religious ethics and hypocrisy.
That Amaro slips so easily into the amoral role set up for him by the likes of Father Benito (even though the old priest seems to find some redemption at the end) is what gives the film its air of frustrating hopelessness.
So much time is spent on the sexual dalliances of Father Amaro and the girl, Amelia, that we don't really get to see enough of the other forms of controversy and corruption with which the film is dealing.
In addition to the aforementioned Bernal, Sancho Gracia and Damian Alcazar are excellent as Amaro's fellow troubled priests and Ana Claudia Talancon is pretty and poised as the young girl drawn by lust, love and passion to this weak-souled priest.Viewers will most likely find `El Crimen Del Padre Amaro' to be either a brave film or an offensive one, depending on which side of the religious divide they happen to come down on.
"El crimen del padre Amaro" (called "The Crime of Father Amaro" in English) portrays newly ordained priest Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal) getting pulled in several directions in a small Mexican town.
Credit has to go to the scenario written by Vicente Leñeros, adapting the original material and bringing the action to present day rural Mexico.The turmoil within the Catholic church is in the headlines of the media and this story deals with the hypocrisy of father Amaro in not practicing what the church wants him to teach these poor people.
Poor Amalia, the young woman, in the story, she is repeating what her own mother is doing on the sly with the older priest, father Benito, something that young father Amaro gets to know as soon as he arrives in the small town he has been assigned to serve.
NOT because the photography was excellent, but it was!In addition to all the above, it spoke of a very real and present danger existing in our societies today, so skillfully, and with such excellence of production, and character and thematic development that I will long remember the story, the feelings of ALL the characters, and, most important of all, the POINT.The REAL CRIME became evident in the early stages of the movie: the sin of placing ego ahead of God, and the people to whom one has voluntarily become a Shepard.
The characters are weakly depicted: There´s no true transformation, Amaro is flimsy and stupid, the same with almost all the other carachters, just forgettable ones...I could continue to insult and criticize this film, but if i did I don´t think you would understand me (not only because my bad english) because to do so, you would need to live there, and know true latin-american priests and know that here, in this jungle of ignorants, everybody loves the subject about corruption in religion...
For the rest of the people they seemed to enjoy the humor, which in the process also seems to lighten the dramatic parts, and no longer can we take the characters and situations seriously.The theme of the movie, whichever it was, seems to get lost in the over packed story; you'll get drug trafficking, abortions, retarded girls, newspaperman, priest, clerics and else.
His crime is revealed mostly in the very last scene of the film, though he commits it throughout the story.This is not a feel-good movie but an important one with a lot to say about the place of religion and those who practice it in today's world.
And a fair share of condemnation from some for this Mexican submission for a Best Foreign Film Oscar.But Amaro's real moral crime is, at least to me, far more serious than his understandable straying from the path of sexual abstinence demanded by his church's dogma, a doctrine enforced sporadically and then often only when responsive to an enveloping and inescapable scandal.Amaro's great offense isn't found in the penal code of any nation - it's careerism, the sometimes crawling, occasionally grasping, rarely abandoned pursuit of advancement.
A priest's choice is a reflection of his free will.Amaro (the cast is listed on IMDb and except for the actor playing the lead, also seen in "Y tu mama, tambien," most are unknown to U.S. audiences) initially seems like a young priest whose character is several parts holiness healthily leavened by an earthly openness and caring that should insure his success in his first post as assistant parish father.That combination, if true, would give us a very boring film.
Aside from Gael Garcia, who plays Father Amaro, all other actors are great, including Ana Claudia Talancón, who plays Amaro´s interest in the film.
Like a badly written soap opera.To rely totally on the notion that the subject matter - a young priest has an affair with a female parishoner - makes for compelling drama is rather naive.There was nothing in this film that set it apart from a Jackie Collins made for TV movie.That it was ever considered for an Oscar is quite simply baffling.
Gail Garcia Bernal and Ana Claudia Talancon as Father Amaro and Amelia give wonderful performances as do all of the actors.In addition to the primary roles there are several interesting characters including [in my opinion, one of the best] the retarded daughter of the sexton.
"El crimen del Padre Amaro", sadly captures the actual situation of the Church, as a mexican and a beliver I can't say is a bad movie or that attemps against the Church, I see it more as a wake up call, so that all belivers see what is going and start to make a change to prevent this and other situations from happening.
"El Crimen del padre Amaro" is a film hard to watch, specially for catholics and yes, it could change your vision for Catholic Church if you take as an example recent events in real life.The movie starts a controversy that surrounds the credibility of the Catholic Church through their priests and the connections between the Church with politics and drug dealers.
I recommend it for everyone, even if you are not Catholic this movie shows how the Church has became a dirty business and not only in México..."El Crimen del Padre Amaro" will start a controversy and it will be acclaimed by critics, just like "Amores Perros" and "Y Tu Mamá También"..
Gael Garcia Bernal was Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries and is just as good as Father Amaro, a Catholic priest filled with doubt about his life's meaning.
When Amaro and Amelia share their first kiss in the pews of the church the camera pans away from these two people and instead zooms in upon the figure of a porcelain Virgin Mary.The film successfully draws attention to the very reality of conflict that exist between religion, politics, and the internal struggles of the individuals within these systems..
Directed by Carlos Carrera, starring Gael Garcia Bernal (Amaro), Sancho Gracia (Benito), and Ana Talancon (Amelia), this film examines the presence of the Catholic church in Mexico and the grip it has on Mexican politics and reality (ironically, efforts were made by the church to block the film).
There are no fast-paced, action-packed and flashy qualities present in many blockbusters nowadays, but the film does keep one's interest in the melodrama and hypocrisy that unfolds.The movie starts with a fresh, newly ordained priest (Amaro) who is sent to a small town to study under the seasoned Benito.
This is voiced by Carrera in the opening scene where Amaro drives by Catholic tombstones: "They don't mean anything - they are forgotten." But the church remains very powerful, having symbiotic relationships with drug lords, government and media that allow it to persist and influence Mexico.So much detail was taken in the film's depiction of Mexico: the contrast of modernity and tradition (donkeys and cars on the streets), the economic woes of the 1990s and resulting corruption, the Catholic church's scandals, and increasing liberalism at the time.
Love, lust, scandal and sin, El Crimen Del Padre Amaro, tells the story of the conflict between one's faith, the desires of the flesh, and the consequences that entail.
The movie develops in a small town where people don't get much education and therefore they are more naive, they are more likely to believe anything, even more if it comes from a priest, but that's reality, it happens!
"El Crimen del Padre Amaro", based on a book written in 1875, Carlos Carrera achieves to project several of true events that has happened since the starts of the Catholic religion and that prevails in our days.Great cast, good actings, and thanks to the free publicity that PROVIDA gave to the movie around the polemics untied with the arguments that the movie offends to the catholic community with several scenes of the movie, Carrera's film is now a success in Mexico's movie theaters..
"The Crime of Father Amaro" tells a story about a young Mexican priest who is lost in a world of romance and politics, a world that is completely new for him.
The script was written by Vicente Leñero, responsible por scripting "La Ley de Herodes", a movie with which it shares similarities in plot and structure.Father Amaro played by Gael Garcia Bernal (of "Amores Perros" and "Y Tu Mama Tambien") arrives to a small town only to discover ilegal actions involving the local drug-mafia and the local church and to find himself infatuated by the presence of Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancón).
I decided to go the next day and I saw a lot of things that may be the rawest images about religion that I've seen.But considering this scenes not to be the main plot of the movie, we actually see the story of the men behind the robe of a Father, Priest, Bishop, etc.
We see a Priest who accepts money (and washes it) from the mob to build a Hospital, We see another one who is involved with a Guerrilla, and finally, we see Father Amaro (Gael Garcia) who gets involved with a 16-years old girl.I recommend and encourage people to go see this movie, religious and non-religious, because it's a great movie, to help Mexican movies, and to create an open cultural and religious mind in all the people that goes to see it..
I can see Bill Donahue of the Catholic League fuming and frothing over a film that features a pastor laundering drug money and sleeping with his housekeeper; another priest openly defying his Bishop to minister to the guerrillas in the mountains; a wacky woman who fakes taking communion only to hide it and carry it home to give to her cat; and, the greatest crime of all, Father Amaro deflowering a young girl, getting her pregnant, and praying for a miracle, which came, but not as the church would approve.There are the book purists who feel that Eça de Queirós' novel is not given proper respect, but a movie is not a book.
Performances are very powerful, especially those by the two main characters, el Padre Amaro (Gael García Bernal) and Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancón).
Where a young priest Amaro(Mexico cinema's new face Gael Garcia Bernal)falls in love with the daughter of Father Benito's Mistress.
The most interesting thing is there are not characters totally good or bad (like televisa soap, and why not most of the movies)the nark save Benito's life, where a very catholic had an Abortion Clinic.
Young father Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal) is assigned to a small church in a small town in Mexico.
It doesn't make any sense to change, to such an extent, the original story.Just for you to see how ridiculous this gets, there's a moment in the film where Amelia (the girl Padre Amaro falls in love with) confesses to the priest that sometimes, while she's having a bath, she touches herself thinking about Jesus Christ.
So, at the outset, this film loses a large portion of its audience.Father Amaro (Gael García Bernal) is a very young priest who is on his way to his first parish.
The two emotions must be balanced to truly make the crime of Father Amaro (as well as those of the movie's other corrupt priests) touch the audience.
El Crimen Del Padre Amaro is a movie about corruption in the Catholic Church and the personal struggle of priests between obedience and temptation.
Padre Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal) is a young ambitious priest sent to a small town to work in his first church.
Carlos Carrera made the controversial film, El crimen del Padre Amaro, to expose the corruption and hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico.