Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Pope's Toilet (El baño del Papa) (2007)

Director(s): César Charlone, Enrique Fernández. Cast: César Troncoso, Virginia Méndez, Mario Silva. 90 min. Uruguay/Brazil/France. Drama.

Ever seen a movie from Uruguay? Inspired by a real event in 1988, poverty-stricken villagers prepare themselves for the greatest event in history: the Pope is to pass through their tiny village. But the preparation takes incredibly materialistic turns, as each and every villager come up with ways to make the most financial benefit from the presumed thousands of tourists gathering for the event - and among the villagers, a smart trafficker endeavors on making a public toilet. The result, is a sad statement on how religion becomes a means for (not necessarily spiritual) self-satisfaction. A wildly anti-religion satire.

Mo says:

4 comments:

  1. I will give this one a miss. I have reccomended it to a friend who is a rampant protestant. Religious hatred is massive in the more southerly part of Scotland and is creeping ever northwards so this film would have done well if it was in English!

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  2. I was hesitant to even write about this movie, because I was surprised if anybody could find it even if they did like it! I don't know about Scotland, but the idiot-nurturing Hollywood system makes it very difficult for a movie from Uruguay to make it through and into the video stores in the States here.

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  3. Maybe in some specialist outlets. There isn't even a video store in this town now. Mostly people just rent by post or download movies for free.

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  4. Same here. With all the Blockbuster stores closing one after the other, Netflix (mailing and online movie streaming) is pretty much deciding what we see here and when we see it.

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