The Crime of Father Amaro (Crimen del Padre Amaro, El) (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Dolby Digital Trailer-City Audio Commentary-Carlos Carrera (Director) and Gael Garcia Bernal (Actor) Featurette-Making Of-(5:08) Gallery-Poster Filmographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer-2 Web Links
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	113:53
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (57:27)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Carlos Carrera
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Gael García Bernal Sancho Gracia Ana Claudia Talancón Damián Alcázar Angélica Aragón Luisa Huertas Ernesto Gómez Cruz Gastón Melo Andrés Montiel Gerardo Moscoso Alfredo Gonzáles Pedro Armendáriz Jr. Verónica Langer
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Rosino Serrano

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Italian Arabic Croatian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hungarian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Slovenian Swedish Turkish English Audio Commentary Italian Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Okay, I apologise straight out for this but I will use the original Spanish name of the film throughout the review, rather than the English version. Not a big point but one I feel is important. This is all the more important as the English translation of the name is The Crime Of Father Amaro, yet the DVD itself hedges its bets by using The Crime Of Padre Amaro in the menus...

    It is perhaps very important to know that, despite the timing of the release of the film coinciding with the generally despicable revelations about the "goings-on" amongst the clergy of organised religions around the world, this was not a "cash in" film in any way. It is also important to understand that, despite the protestations of the Catholic Church that ensured its success in the domestic marketplace, the film is not another Catholic bashing. The novel that the film was based upon was actually written in 1875 by Jose Maria Eça de Queiros and was based in Portugal. The setting has been updated to Mexico and the 21st century to account for a couple of important points - not the least of which being that Mexico is one Catholic nation where celibacy amongst the clergy is not as strict as the Vatican might dictate. This point is made very clear in the audio commentary, specifically mentioning that the fact that priests have wives and family is well accepted in local communities. Indeed, it is perhaps the fact that celibacy as a part of church dogma is based upon a false reason that provides what I believe is the central core of the film: the nature of faith. In many ways the film is a questioning look at the nature of faith in general, set against 21st century reality rather than 15th century puritanical views that probably cannot have any real relevance today. Basically, what is so wrong with such a natural act as sex that it should be denied a person in order that they can be closer to God or a deliverer of God's message?

    The story is of course centred around Father Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal), a young priest newly arrived in Los Reyes. Sent there by the bishop as a stepping stone to bigger things in the hierarchy, the bright-eyed but ambitious Amaro is to assist the incumbent priest Father Benito (Sancho Gracia). However, Amaro soon learns that Benito, along with some other diocese priests such as Father Natalio (Damián Alcazar), might not be the pinnacle of piety that they should perhaps be. Turns out that Benito has for years been keeping the local restaurant owner Augustina Sanjuanera (Angélica Aragon) as a wife, within all the ordinary meanings of that word, as well as being very friendly with the local drug baron Chato Aguilar (Juan Ignacio Aranda). That friendship extends to accepting Chato's money, even though of illegal origin, towards the building costs of a new hospital. If all that was not enough for the young priest to deal with, Augustina has a beautiful daughter Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancon). Ordinarily this might create problems, but it also turns out the Amaro is not necessarily a believer of the vow of celibacy and, as he himself points out, he is a man and Amelia is a very alluring woman...

    To add to the plot, the arrival of Amaro in town has coincided with the break-up of Amelia with her boyfriend Ruben de la Rosa (Andrés Montiel). He happens to have just got a job with a newspaper as a writer and his father holds all the dirt on the local priesthood...

    On the face of it, the story is fairly simple, straightforward and rather obvious from the first ten minutes (barring the slight twist). That analysis would in fact be quite fair as this is no Pulitzer Prize winner in the writing stakes. Indeed, as a melodrama it is pretty much by-the-numbers in most respects. But that is not entirely the point here, as by taking a fairly uncomplicated, rather straightforward approach, the film can actually concentrate on the relationships of the main characters and their interactions. By doing this, it forces the actors to do what they are paid to do - and this they do by the bucketful. Across the cast, there is excellence in abundance and the whole thing is made entirely believable because of it. Spanish actor Sancho Gracia for instance really does come across as a priest who sees nothing wrong with keeping a wife and taking a drug baron's money. Gael Garcia Bernal has been widely praised for his efforts in films such as Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien (neither of which I regret to say I have seen) and on the strength of his performance here is a talent indeed. He simply convinces that he is a priest and he has these demons to address. The core of the film is between he and Ana Claudia Talancon as the beautiful young woman caught between her religious beliefs and her womanly desires. Some of the scenes involving them are just sublime acting experiences, hitting just the right balance between these two very important parts of their lives. The tantalising mix of naivety, vulnerability and determination are rare instances of genuine acting that seemingly can only come from non-Hollywood films. On the evidence here, Ana Claudia Talancon is a very big star in the making.

    Whilst there are perhaps a few places where the film could perhaps have proceeded at a slightly less leisurely pace, in general Carlos Carrera directs with an assured hand. What he has turned out on a budget of US$1,800,000 is indication enough of why the American film industry has every right to be wary of the cheaper costs south of the border.

    El Crimen Del Padre Amaro is by no means a classic film and whilst my experience of Mexican film is rather limited, unlikely to be the best from that source by what I have read and heard. What the film is, however, is a terrific piece of ensemble filmmaking that takes a moderately clichéd story that has been done hundreds of times before, and makes it something that sustains itself with ease. The excellent quality of the acting is well captured on film and makes this an important film and one that does warrant your investigation.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, in accordance with the theatrical aspect ratio, and it is 16x9 enhanced.

    In general, this is a serious quality transfer with some excellent visual clues as to how good it is. In particular the opening sequence in the bus with the window getting progressively dirtier is a sublime indication of the care with which the film was shot. That care is reflected in, well, the reflections - sharp, detailed and vivid. You would not characterise the whole transfer as sharp though, as there is a heavy bias towards a rather narrow depth of field. This means that only the subject is held in sharp relief with foreground and background being quite diffuse. Don't shoot anyone for this however: the commentary reveals that the cinematographer loves narrow depth of field and in this instance the director thought it generally suited the film very well. Despite the narrow depth of field, the film actually is very well detailed and you certainly cannot argue much with the way it all looks on screen. Shadow detail is generally very good. With hardly anything in the way of grain present, this is a clear transfer throughout.

    One immediate impression of the film is that whilst there is obvious quality in the transfer, the colours are a little on the muted side. Whilst not expecting a riot of colour, I was expecting some bright primary colours at times and they simply did not appear. Listening to the commentary tells you why. So within the context of what was intended, what we have here is excellent stuff indeed. The transfer does have a decent vibrancy about it even if the actual colours themselves tend towards muted. There is not a single indication of any saturation issues and there is nothing even close to colour bleed. Skin tones are very well handled and whilst blacks could perhaps have been deeper, they would then have been out of step with the intent of the colour presentation.

    There did not seem to be any MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There are no serious issues with film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, with just the odd minor instance of aliasing to be noted. The most obvious example is the pick-up truck grille at 16:46, but minor furniture aliasing can be seen if you look hard enough throughout the film. Whilst a recent film, there are still a few film artefacts floating around. Mostly of the small black variety, there is certainly nothing that could be called annoying or intrusive.

    This is an RSDL formatted DVD with the layer change coming at 57:27. It is reasonably well placed and is only really noticeable as the movement through the doorway is a little slowed by the layer change. Perhaps it could have been better but certainly not that disruptive to the flow of the film.

    There is a decent selection of subtitles on the DVD, so I would suspect that most of the population should be able to find one that will suffice for their understanding of the Spanish language of the film. Being a dual coded region 2/4 DVD however, the selection is biased towards the European community more than the Asian. Since my command of Spanish is rather woeful in all respects, as to how good the English subtitles are I really cannot attest. However, they certainly seemed to gel well with the film so I am guessing that they do their job well enough.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    We get the choice of four soundtracks on the DVD: the original Spanish in Dolby Digital 5.1, an English dub in Dolby Digital 5.1, an Italian dub in Dolby Digital 5.1 and an Audio Commentary in Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0. Whilst I would not agree with the philistine description of one reviewer regarding those who choose to listen to the English dub, it has to be said that this is a Spanish language film and that is the language to watch the film in. So I listened to the entire original language soundtrack and only sampled the English dub sporadically.

    Since this is obviously a very dialogue based film, it is extremely important that the dialogue comes up quite well in the transfer. In general it does, although there are a few places where the dialogue is very, very soft and you need to concentrate hard on what is being said. This only applies to the Spanish soundtrack as the English dub is of a different nature. The English and Italian dubs obviously have significant audio sync problems but thankfully the all-important Spanish soundtrack is free of any such problems.

    The original music score comes from Rosino Serrano, but I cannot honestly say it was a magnificent contribution - for the simple reason that it did not have to be. I would be guessing that most of the music in the film is actually classical, religious music that is drawn heavily from the church itself. What little else was required was pretty much by-the-numbers stuff to flesh out the emotions of the film in most respects.

    From what I listened to of the English dub, there is little to commend it at any level. Aside from the fact that it seems to destroy much of the inflection of emotion through being a much more literal language than Spanish, and a much less inherently lyrical language, the dub is almost like a monotone being read straight off a cue sheet. Can you say yuck? Good, because that is what I would like to describe the dub as. Now on the other hand the Spanish soundtrack is very nice. Sure, there is no great demonstration of surround sound effects (thank God I say for that), but there is enough surround encoding here to give the dialogue a deal of body support when required. The encoding ensures that this is a nice, easy soundtrack to listen to with enough dynamic to ensure that the dialogue does not drag you off into a corner with boredom. Rear surround use is quite minimal, mainly for some added ambience, but the fronts are well used to spread the effect of dialogue in the church for instance.

    The only real issue that I have with the soundtrack is some extraneous bass in the mix that seems to bear no relationship to the necessities of bass in the soundtrack. There are several examples throughout the film, including between 22:30 and 23:14 and between 41:58 and 42:22. Thankfully it is not a huge bass rumble, but it is there and does detract just a tad from the film at times.

    Overall the Spanish soundtrack is a much better sounding effort, open and clear, than the English dub which is really a little too flat for my taste (and don't even ask me my thoughts as to the pointless nature of such a dub).

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

   All things considered, not too bad a package of extras has been put together here, although something more substantive in the featurette would have been appreciated.

Menu

   I rather liked these, which are done rather well and with very nice audio and animation enhancement (it doesn't hurt that Ana Claudia Talancon features prominently). The total animation runs 1:30 before restarting.

Dolby Digital Trailer - City

   It's enough to make grown men cry - well, at least make them bloody angry. Aside from the fact the d*** thing's use by date was four years ago and we are still being assaulted by it, do they really have to transfer it at what sounds like four times the audio level of the menus and film? GET RID OF THIS SODDING THING PLEASE!

Audio Commentary - Carlos Carrera (Director) and Gael Garcia Bernal (Actor)

   The translation from Spanish to English probably does not serve the effort real well at all, at least judging by the subtitles that obviously I have to resort to in order to understand anything at all (well, apart from si). However, there is plenty of very interesting stuff here, and often not about the film per se. There are some very interesting comments passed regarding the entire issue of priests, wives and family for instance. Whilst Gael Garcia Bernal does at times get a little annoying with his input, the whole thing overall works rather well in a nice banter-style. It has English and Italian subtitles for those whose Spanish is as bad as mine.

Featurette - Making Of (5:08)

   This promised to be a terrific view, but the reality is that it is nothing more than a five minute EPK presentation for American press use. As such the thing is basically a waste of space and a terribly waste of an opportunity to add bite to the extras package. The presentation is in Full Frame format, it is not 16x9 enhanced and features English Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. The technical quality is very good.

Gallery - Poster

   Six variations on a theme. Not essential stuff by any stretch of the imagination.

Filmographies - Cast and Crew

   With the emphasis very much on the crew (4 - Carlos Carrera, Alfredo Ripstein, Daniel Birman Ripstein and Vicente Lenero) rather the cast (2 - Gael Garcia Bernal and Ana Claudia Talancon), pretty basic stuff that is only lifted by the inclusion of short interviews with Carlos Carrera (1:18), Gael Garcia Bernal (1:11 and 1:35) and Ana Claudia Talancon (0:49).

Theatrical Trailer (1:45)

   Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, it is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. For the Spanish impaired, it has English and Italian subtitles (although if you don't speak any of these three languages I don't know what you do!). Technically very good with no problems at all.

Theatrical Trailer - International (1:54)

   Basically the same presentation as the previous trailer, and very much a variation on a theme.

Web Links

   Nothing much - takes you to the Sony Pictures web site where you can do the usual stuff that such places give you (which basically means nothing worthwhile)

    From the reviews available it would seem that both the (US) Region 1 release and the (UK) Region 2 release are identically featured to the Region 4 as far as extras are concerned. The Region 1 release does feature less in the way of audio and subtitle options, but then again I don't think too many people would really want to watch this dubbed in Italian: the English dub was bad enough. Given that we all seem to have been given a very similar standard in the way of audio and video transfers, this is one to get wherever it may be cheapest - and given the RPI on the Region 4 release, that is probably Region 1 at the moment.

    El Crimen Del Padre Amaro fortunately or unfortunately incurred the wrath of the Catholic Church upon release and they tried to have it banned. The result was of course that even in one of the most Catholic nations on Earth, the public flocked to see the film. One hopes that they emerged from their viewing more informed and more Christian than the church hierarchy that condemned it before even seeing it. It is a little unfortunate that it emerged during a period where the Catholic Church in particular was under attack from just about every quarter regarding the behaviour of some of its clergy. Doing so meant that the film was possibly dismissed as another attack upon the Catholic Church. From where I sit, I do not perceive this as an anti-Catholic film. What it assuredly is is an attack on the hypocrisy that equally applies to a small segment of the clergy from many organised religions. Whilst it is certainly not a film to watch for purely light entertainment purposes, El Crimen Del Padre Amaro is an important film and one that does bear investigation. The Mexican film industry is beginning to demonstrate its importance to the global film industry and it is due to quality films like this. Highly recommended.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall