The Crime of Padre Amaro

Starring:Gael GarcÃa Bernal, Ana Claudia TalancÃ³n, Sancho Gracia, AngÃ©lica AragÃ³n, Luisa Huertas, Ernesto GÃ³mez Cruz, GastÃ³n Melo, DamiÃ¡n AlcÃ¡zar, AndrÃ©s Montiel, Gerardo Moscoso, Alfredo GonzÃ¡les, Pedro ArmendÃ¡riz Jr., VerÃ³nica Langer, Lorenzo de Rodas, Roger Nevares, Fernando Becerril, Jorge ZÃ¡rate, Rosa MarÃa Castillo, Blanca Loaria, Juan Ignacio Aranda
Director: Carlos Carrera
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

This controversial film follows a handsome young priest, Padre Amaro (played by Gael Garcia Bernal from Y Tu Mamá También and Amores Perros), who arrives in a small town and finds himself surrounded by hypocrisy and corruption--and also finds himself tempted by a beautiful young woman who confesses that when she "touches herself," she thinks of Jesus. What makes El Crimen del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro) particularly effective is that Amaro is no innocent--he skillfully forces a newspaper publisher to retract a scandalous story about the Church and is willing to take extreme steps to preserve his career. Some of the movie's harsher digs at the Catholic Church have provoked accusations of prejudice; but though Padre Amaro portrays a world in which no one's hands are clean, it also finds redeeming qualities in every character. A complex, completely engrossing movie. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Sins Of The Flesh.......2007-03-09

Father Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal) is a young priest sent to work in the small, rural town of Los Reyes, Mexico. Father Amaro is idealistic at first. But soon discovers that his senior priest, Father Benito, has an ongoing affair with a local woman named Sanjuanera and that he is also laundering drug money for some murderous narco-traffickers in order to raise funds to build a "First World quality" hospital.

Soon Father Amaro finds himself involved in his own forbidden love affair with a romantically obsessed young girl named Amelia (Ana Claudia Talacon). When Amelia becomes pregnant the selfish Father Amaro seeks to protect his own career by pressuring Amelia into having an abortion. But the illegal abortion is botched and Amelia ends up bleeding to death. Yet, despite all his horrific misdeeds, Father Amaro is wrongly credited as being a hero for trying to save Amelia while the blame for her pregnancy and abortion is falsely placed on her "heretic" ex-boyfriend.

This movie depicts a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, with the worst characters, most notably Father Amaro himself, making out fine. While those with good intentions tend to suffer. For instance, the idealistic Father Natalio is ex-communicated by the Church for his devotion to a village of poor peasants. So, yes, this movie does offer a critique on the corruption within the Catholic Church. But, more importantly, it is about the corruption of the soul, which each of us, as human beings, are susceptible to.

"The Crimes Of Father Amaro" was one of the first in what has turned out to be a long line of intelligent, artistic Mexican films made over the last 5 years. I also highly recommend "Amores Perros" and "Y Tu Mama Tambien". This is a great movie. Go watch it!

temptation.......2007-02-27

this is an important movie about the nature of temptation and the complications of living a double life.. It is also an interesting look into hypocracy.. All of the characters are involved in some dirty business.. and this leads to a tragic outcome that will leave us lost in thought at the end.. Very captivating..

Mexico's official entry for this year's Foreign Film Oscar nomination consideration..........2006-12-24

For many priests, celibacy is a true vocation which liberates them... For others, it is a lifelong struggle... If celibacy was made voluntary, not only would many priests be happier, but the Church would be richer... Above all, it might decide the only way to restore the numbers of the priesthood, and that seems to me not a bad idea...

As I understand, a Catholic priest must clearly know that he belongs body and soul, with all that he is, to the church, to her task, to her mission, her work, and her destiny... He must be a public icon of strength, virility, honesty, and dedicated service...

But in 'The Crime of Father Amaro,' the top film in Mexican box-office history, Carlos Carrera shows that even a man with morals and scruples betrays the nature of his profession, mostly when he brazenly criticizes the priesthood, and questions the Catholic Church's representatives on a variety of charges like illicit love affair, corruption, drug dealing, and hypocrisy...

The story takes a liberal priest Father Amaro(Gael Garcia Bernal), protégé of a repulsive obese bishop (Ernesto Gomez Cruz), to the remote dusty village of Los Reyes to assist the older priest of the parish Father Benito (Sancho Gracia) in his daily work...

Amaro quickly realizes that virtually every fellow priest is involved in something immoral, and that his aging superior is receiving financial help from the region's drug lord for the construction of a new church-run hospital, and is secretly spending his cold nights with the proprietress of a local restaurant Augustina (Anjelica Aragón). He also discovers that Father Natalio (Damian Alcazar) is suspected of aiding the revolutionary factions in opposing the drug lords and mobsters...

Amaro's own weaknesses is put to the test when he finds himself led into temptation by Augustina 's extremely sensual teenager Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancón) a relationship that eventually goes way outside the bounds of his priestly oath... and, without any sign of inner turmoil, he embarks on a passionate affair with the devout catechism teacher...

Amalia - for whom loving a young priest serves as an extension of her deep piety - decides that the good-looking priest is the one for her and rejects her disappointed boyfriend, the aggressive reporter Ruben (Andres Montiel) who wrote an article alleging that the hospital is a front for laundering drug money...

The most over-the-top performance is provided by Luisa Huertas as the town frightening parishioner Dionisia who takes great delight in exposing heretics... This malicious lady (who, apparently, knows absolutely everything there is to know about anyone...) pretends to put coins in the collection plate but cleverly palms paper money back...

Gastón Melo plays the tender lay-assistant to the elder priest, who cares for his invalid-epileptic daughter, and carries many secrets but tells none..

"The Crime of Father Amaro" is polemical today as Martin Scorcese's 'The Last Temptation of Christ.'

The film focuses on blasphemous scenes as on a vicious priest who stops at nothing, even by continuing the lies and hypocrisy to protect his career... His value system is completely corrupted... Father Amaro's ability to stand behind his beliefs extents to nothing... His generosity and wealth of spirit becomes selfishness and bitterness... His ambitions to rise in the church hierarchy clouds his judgment...

Mexico is in the middle of a film renaissance which is wonderful if they come up with a new wave of irreverent movies thundering forward juicier targets than the church's vices... sex, abortion, abuse, witchcraft, betrayal, and political corruption...

SPIRITUAL ECSTASY AND SEXUAL PASSION.......2006-06-23

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. With its dangerously intertwining themes of spiritual ecstasy and sexual passion, it's not hard to see why. At the heart of the story is a young priest who wrestles in a major way with the tempting hungers of his body and the grace-filled yearnings of his spirit. It does not help that, to pursue his vocation, he is sent to a town sustained by a culture of corruption.

One thing the 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. Unfortunately, his happily deluded demeanor meets with an equally intense personality in the form of Amelia, a devout young devotee acted with mesmerizing perfection by the gorgeous Ana Claudia Talancon. Amelia idolizes the young priest as a true and noble holy man whose sexuality is made sacred by his presumably pure soul. He in turn dares to drape her in a cape reserved for representations of the Madonna and recites to her from Solomon's "Song of Songs" as they seduce each other. Controversial? 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. The outcome in "The Crime of Padre Amaro" is shocking in more ways than one and well worth contemplating for a long time.

By Aberjhani
Author of I Made My Boy Out of Poetry
and Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History)

una historia muy dura de creer.......2006-04-17

, bueno esta es una histora, que creo que le podria pasar a cualquier padre.

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