Buy The Crime of Padre Amaro on DVD

The Crime of Padre Amaro

DVD Widescreen

More Info

Usually ships in
5-10 days

$17.99 (10% off)
List Price: ~~$19.99~~

When new special editions or price reductions are announced.

Synopsis

Sin abounds in the Catholic church in this tale of sexual corruption involving a young priest in a small-town Mexican parish.

Review

As if the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t already have a bad rep, this adept Mexican drama drives one more stake into the heart of Catholic ideals. When young new priest Father Amaro (Bernal) joins the parish of a small Mexican town, he arouses spiritual interests from many and other interests from local teenager Amelia (Talancón). One thing leads to another and soon the new priest is taking Amelia to private locations to “prepare her to be a nun” as described to one inquisitor. Father Amaro climbs aboard the same corruption train that carries his mentor Father Benito (Gracia), another fornicating priest who also has been accepting drug money to build a new hospital. With such controversial themes, the film is still handled with class and without the feeling of a dime store pulp novel. Bernal sensitively approaches this material and generates humanity out of a priest whose unwise and disturbing choices are borne from a fractured religious consciousness. (Spanish with English subtitles)

--Mekado Murphy

Product Format Information

DVD Widescreen: $17.99

Availability: Usually ships in
5-10 days
Region Code: 1
UPC: 043396004672

Studio : Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Languages: Spanish Dolby Digital Surround (Primary) , English Subtitles
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic Widescreen
Features:
Audio commentary: Director and Actor commentary
Documentaries: Making-of featurette
Photo gallery; Poster explorations

Keywords

Catholicism, Corruption - Religious

Genres

Drama, International

Customer Reviews

Anti-Catholic & Other Good Things

xxhot2trot wrote on 04/18/2003:

This film is one of the most anti-Catholic and controversial films I've ever seen. Although basically a soap opera, the situations, characters and directorial style are enough to keep you interested for the length of the film.

If you are a Catholic, this film is guaranteed to offend you. It's based on a Portugese novel written in 1885. The anti-Catholicism tends to be a bit one sided, and ultimately it's difficult to believe that virtually every priest in the radius of one small Mexican town could be so totally corrupt.

Nevertheless, this film is quite enjoyable, if for no other reason than the presence of Gael Garcia Bernal, the sexiest young Latino actor to come along since Antonio Banderas.

The DVD producers have taken the unusual step, for a foreign film, of providing a dubbed audio track in English, for those who have an aversion to subtitles. In my mind, this is a waste of time, since people who don't like subtitles shouldn't be purchasing foreign films.