esrosedotblog

Today's film explores the boundaries between Church and State as well as between vows (chastity) and real life.

The Crime of Padre Amaro (2002)

New priest in town. Gael Garcia Bernal.

Fresh out of seminary and new to the kind of backwoods he is sent to, he discovers that the maintenance of purity is a tough thing to follow especially when he falls in love with a local girl.

This seems outlandish on the outside, but the film somehow avoids the soap opera like pitfalls that such a story encounters.

Bernal saves the film. He seems genuinely confused over the difference between lust and chastity which seems kind of weird but he is truly an innocent. This is conveyed in many ways in the performance of the actors. Mostly Mexican. Stars in their own country.

It is not a masterpiece and it is hard sometimes to take all the piety or phony piety that is on the menu here. But it is OK. I have seen it before and did not mind seeing it again but that will be all for me. No third tries. I have had about enough church to last me a long while.

A 3 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films