El Crimen Del Padre Amaro
Rated NR
Foreign
Foreign
Try to guess what Father Amaro’s crime is. I’ll give you a hint: He’s young, beautiful and full of the spirit of Christ. Need another hint? He tells one of his parishioners, the fetching young Amelita, that she is "more beautiful than the virgin." Then he recites the Song of Songs to her. Then they have sexual intercourse. Give up? You’ll just have to watch the movie to find out. Gael Garcia Bernal, who is apparently in every Mexican film that comes to Los Estados, having played Julio in Y Tu Mama Tambien, and Octavio in Amores Perros, stars as Father Amaro, whose surname should have been a tip-off to the fact that he’s not well-constituted for the priesthood. Father Amaro finds himself enmeshed in intrigue with a money-laundering monsignor (Sancho Gracia), a partisan padre (Damian Alcazar) and a preternaturally pretty parishioner (Ana Claudia Talancón) who can’t keep her paws off the poor priest. Of the last three films starring Bernal to make it north of the border, this is probably the least interesting, but seeing as the Catholic Church has spoken out against it, I guess I’ll have to give it a thumbs-up.
