The Crime of Father Amaro (El Crimen del padre Amaro)
Directed by Carlos Carrera.
Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Sancho Gracia.
The Crime of Father Amaro is about ‘sex, religion and politics’, particularly in relation to the Catholic Church, which has apparently called for a boycott on this film.
The film opens onto a very handsome young face. A face I last saw cavorting about in a ménage a trois. Is this Father Amaro? Journeying alongside him on the bus is an old man who reveals that he has sold his land to set up a business with his son in Las Reyes. “That’s nice,” says the young man disdainfully and turns away. Suddenly there is a Pulp Fiction style ‘hold up’ (not a good omen for me) and at journey’s end, the young man, still looking disdainful, gives the now penniless old man some money.
Yes, this is Father Amaro, a young priest in Las Reyes for his first assignment. On the very night of his arrival he learns that his superior, Father Benito, is sleeping with a woman. Very quickly, crime and corruption is established as the order of the day and there is speculation as to the place of sin within it all. It is claimed that ‘bad’ money can be made ‘good’, as it is revealed that the church, in order to build a hospital for its congregation, launders drug money. Father Natale, a liberation theologist, unable to accommodate the corruption, struggles against it with his peasant congregation.
Religious moral dilemmas are discussed. Sensuality is allowed but not if Jesus is the object of it and in certain instances, abortion can be considered.
Is this a church beyond redemption? Interesting is the way in which the church and its congregation are able to straddle the line between sin and saintliness, creating a bond of human intimacy. One member, the aptly named Dionisia, who has an altar of dismembered and disfigured dolls, is so ‘at home’ with the church that she can call out antagonistically during the service. I got a sense of an old Church having gone native. Had indeed, “Satan visited this town and left his lair”?
Lou Crow
