Against the censure of the Catholic church, Carlos Carrera’s THE CRIME OF PADRE AMARO is the all-time box office champion in Mexico of its time and reaps appreciable international clout as a final nominee of Oscar’s BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM.

Transposing E?a de Queirós’ 19th century titular novel to the present day. the film tears into Mexico’s Catholic Church with both barrels, most blatantly for the depiction of a deluge of corruptions and scandals inside the Church: fornication, money laundering, transaction with local drug lords, internal friction and the most harrowing, the disinterestedness towards those who are in distress (like the wretchedly disabled).

Phrasing the term “crime” instead of “sin” in its title, it betrays that the wrongdoings committed by the young Father Amaro (Bernal) is profane rather than religious, his torrid carnal knowledge with a young, impressionable Catholic girl Amelia (Talancón) is not the “crime” here, but a venial sin, the true crime lies in its tragic aftermath, where we can see Amaro suppresses his conscience in order to pursue benefice, his vocation, this reveal of opportunism is the last nail in the coffin, before you become a man of clothes, you should first be a decent man, that is a prerequisite breached by most of these clergymen. In Amaro’s case, it is so easy to get off the hook of his crime, so he takes the low road and shows almost no compunction, it makes him a hypocrite, a coward that Bernal tries to relate us to his dilemma, but to little avail because his conducts are beyond the pale, also the abortion subplot is musty, its final pro-life snide is a sellout.

It is a priest’s clash between divinity and humanity Carrera sets to explore, and it takes guts and canniness to take the Church to task and stay afloat afterwards, but the entire affair progresses in a lackluster pace, larded with soapy theatrics, emotion is written all over one without finesse (Luisa Huertas’ happy-clappy Gorgon is so repulsive that it can breed misogyny). In the event, what is left valid is a muted outcry, innocence is lost, commission goes unpunished, with a corrupt elder priest expressing his disgust to his young successor as the final fade-out, is it a pot calling a kettle black? THE CRIME OF PADRE AMARO is an Ibero-American cause célèbre, but its bark is worse than its bite, a curate’s egg whose original luster has been etiolated.

referential entries: Fernanda Valadez’s IDENTIFYING FEATURES (2020, 7.3/10); Luis Bu?uel’s VIRIDIANA (1961, 8.2/10).

Title: The Crime of Padre Amaro

Original Title: El crimen del Padre Amaro

Year: 2002

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: Mexico, Spain, Argentina, France

Language: Spanish

Director: Carlos Carrera

Screenwriter: Vincente Le?ero

based on the novel by José Maria de E?a de Queirós

Music: Rosino Serrano

Cinematography: Guillermo Granillo

Editing: Oscar Figueroa

Cast:

Gael García Bernal

Ana Claudia Talancón

Sancho Gracia

Angélica Aragón

Luisa Huertas

Andrés Montiel

Damián Alcázar

Ernesto Gómez Cruz

Lorenzo de Rodas

Verónica Langer

Pedro Armendáriz Jr.

Gastón Melo

Fernando Becerril

Rating: 6.4/10