Spanish Film - Movie Review Example

In this film, there is a murderous priest and a mystery surrounding the death of Ignacio. The movie explores themes including homosexuality, transsexuality, the Catholic crisis regarding pedophilia in the priesthood, and death. The lead characters are Juan and Enrique, who are both homosexual. Enrique has a long lost lover named Ignacio. Juan approaches Enrique with the story that he is Ignacio, and he has a script for a movie which is based upon real events that happened to Ignacio in public school.

In this script, Ignacio is a transsexual who needs money for sex reassignment surgery. He approaches the priest at the Catholic School where he attended as a boy, and confronts Father Manolo, who molested Ignacio when he was a boy at the school. Ignacio threatens Manolo with publishing a fictionalized account of the molestation. Enrique is intrigued with this script, because it accurately represented what happened to the real Ignacio, however, he suspects that the man who presented the script was not really Ignacio.

His suspicions prove correct, and it turns out that Father Manolo, with the help of Ignacio’s brother Juan (who is now posing as Ignacio) murdered Ignacio by giving Ignacio pure heroin which caused an overdose. This was ironic, because, at Enrique’s urging, the ending to the script was changed to where the priest had Ignacio killed. This film is reflective of Spanish culture, in that the culture has become more liberalized with regards to homosexuality and homosexual themes. Therefore, the protagonist, Enrique, can be portrayed sympathetically, even though he is a homosexual.

It also is timely, in that it’s focus is on priestly pedophilia, and this is a topic which is currently in the news on a regular basis. The sexual issues in the film enhance the story, because these issues show the problems created by pedophiliac priests. One has the suspicion that perhaps Ignacio would not have the problems that he had in life- the drug problem, the sexual identity problems, etc. – if the priest did not molest him. Therefore, the sexual issues in the film give clarity and focus to the central themes.