El crimen del padre Amaro (2002)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Carlos Carrera

Writers:

Vicente Leñero (writer)
Eça de Queirós (novel)

Release Date:

16 August 2002 (Mexico)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Lead us not into temptation

Plot:

Politics and sexual passions threaten to corrupt a young, newly-ordained priest in a small Mexican town.

Plot Keywords:

Priest | Church | Mexico | Corruption | Bishop

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 20 wins & 13 nominations

Cast

Gael García Bernal	...	Padre Amaro
Ana Claudia Talancón	...	Amelia
Sancho Gracia	...	Padre Benito Díaz
Angélica Aragón	...	Augustina Sanjuanera
Luisa Huertas	...	Dionisia
Ernesto Gómez Cruz	...	Obispo / Bishop
Gastón Melo	...	Martín
Damián Alcázar	...	Padre Natalio Pérez
Andrés Montiel	...	Rubén de la Rosa
Gerardo Moscoso	...	Doc
Alfredo Gonzáles	...	Viejo / Old Man
Pedro Armendáriz Jr.	...	El Presidente Municipal Gordo / Mayor Gordo (as Pedro Armendáriz)
Verónica Langer	...	Amparito
Lorenzo de Rodas	...	Don Paco de la Rosa
Roger Nevares	...	Padre Galván

Also Known As:

The Crime of Father Amaro (International: English title) (UK) (USA) (literal English title)
El crimen del padre Amaro (Argentina) (Spain)
Le crime du père Amaro (France)

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality, language and some disturbing images.

Runtime:

USA:118 min

Country:

Mexico | Spain | Argentina | France

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:R21 (cut) | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Brazil:16 | Canada:14A | Chile:14 | Finland:K-11 | France:U | Germany:12 | New Zealand:R13 | Norway:15 | South Korea:18 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Zurich) | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico

Company:

Alameda Films

Trivia:

This movie is based on the 1875 novel of the same name by Eça De Queiroz.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Amaro is carrying Amelia out of the clinic and into the car, the old man who opens the car door and holds it for Amaro slams the car door into the camera, which looses its orientation for a while - and there even is a sound.

Quotes:

Padre Benito: I made you the priest's whore.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Vecinos: Cursos de verano (#2.13)" (2007)

Soundtrack:

Y Solamente Tú

A film we can't afford to ignore...

`El Crimen' was not a bad film, although it was hardly worthy of accolades. 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. As a Catholic, it saddens me to see the amazing amount of rage focused around the lust of the film's central character, Padre Amaro. The film, on a superficial level, was rebellion against stale relics of Catholic tradition-- such as requisite chastity for clergy and the deification of inanimate objects-- that may well spell the end of the faith if they are not shed. 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 truest crime of the film is the web of cover-ups and lies that the church creates in order to propagate its cause. The church is held deep in the pockets of the drug cartel and in order to maintain their stability, the majority of the church leadership, from the bishop down to the sacristans,

are quite comfortable with, at worst, lying and falsifying evidence or, at best, looking the other way. 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. One of the most terrifyingly ironic cries of foul against this film, as evidenced in many of these reviews, is, `Priests would never act that way!' How can one, in today's climate, make such assertions? While this film should, in an ideal world, be objectionable, the current outcry by supposedly devout Catholics represents a denial of epidemic proportions.

If one would set aside one's group think for two hours while watching this film, one might gain a perspective of the church that our priests do not offer in their Sunday morning Masses. This film may not represent what we would like our church to be, but it does represent what our church is. If we continue to pretend that the current state of affairs of our faith is acceptable, then el crimen de Padre Amaro will also be our crime: complacence.