Among the films in the Havana Film Festival New York line up was the New York premiere of director Rodrigo Pla’s morality tale, “Desierto Adentro”:

I wanted so much to like this film–first, because it was made in and about Mexico; second, because the shots were steady and lovely; third, because the plot seemed to have so much promise; and fourth, because the characters–the narrator, in particular–were so interesting.

Yet as it plodded on, each scene became increasingly unbelievable. The sins of the father, for which he was trying to atone, continued to accumulate; as they did, he failed to learn any of the lessons that the consequences of his actions were intended to teach him. Predictably, and in accordance with biblical precedent, the sins of the father were visited on his children–over and over again; they died one by one in needless accidents, all trying to transact repentance on behalf of their father. Eventually, the only child left is the narrator–the most fragile of the children, and the one who was never expected to live. The father, never having overcome his hubris and profoundly flawed interpretations of God’s will, hangs himself from the beams of a church he and his children have spent years building.

There is no happy ending, which is fine, but there’s no growth either. It’s a Mexican tale endowed with a mythic sense of Greek tragedy.

Sometimes the provocation of incredulity works, especially in Latin American cinema, but credibility and faith must either be restored or some other payoff must eventually be rendered.

In the case of “Desierto Adentro,” neither happens. The film may well take a place alongside other contemporary Mexican movies that have been similarly preoccupied with religion, sins, and the theme of taking responsibility for the consequences of breaking moral and social taboos (I’m thinking, for instance, of “The Crimes of Padre Amarro” and “Y Tu Mama, Tambien,”) but if it does so, it will be thanks to the skillful camera work and the raw beauty of the film’s backdrop, not for its script.

Text: Julie Schwietert Collazo

I’ve seen more than my fair share of movies whose characters and conflicts develop against the backdrop of the Holocaust. Francisco’s favorite movie of all time is “Schindler’s List” and he considers himself something of a Holocaust scholar; I do believe we’ve watched every film and documentary that’s been made about the Holocaust. (And there are a great many.)

It was thus inevitable that we’d eventually see “The Reader.”

Briefly, the plot: A 15 year old boy in post war Germany meets a stranger who helps him home after she finds him sick in the doorway of her building. After he recovers from a bout of scarlet fever, Michael returns to Hanna’s building with a bouquet of flowers, intending to thank her for her help, if not her warm kindness (she’s a rather cold, brusque woman).

But darn those intentions! Shortly after passing her the bouquet, Michael and Hanna find themselves stripping. And shortly after that? Well… exactly what you’re thinking.

There’s a minor twist that becomes critical to the movie: Hanna’s got a bit of a fetish. Specifically, she wants Michael to read to her. He’s an erudite young man with good literary taste, and Hanna makes a round of reading the requisite foreplay for their rolls in the sack. He indulges her, reading The Odyssey, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Chekhov’s The Lady with the Little Dog to his older sexual tutor.

Their fling lasts a summer, as flings usually do. Hanna gets a promotion, gets moody, and leaves without warning, abandoning her apartment and her relationship with Michael. But she’s not lost to him forever. A few years later, now a law student, Michael is one of a handful of students in a special seminar in which the members are observing a trial of female guards who had been stationed in concentration camps.

And you can guess who’s on trial, the fact of which explains a lot about Hanna’s character and behavior.

Reviews of this film starring Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet, and David Kross are filled with words like “riveting” and “tour-de-force,” and phrases like “Oscar material,” ending with multiple punctuation marks.

But more interesting than the performances of Fiennes, Winslet, or Kross, and even more interesting than the outcome of the trial and the film’s denouement (both of which are painfully predictable), is the development and presentation of a minor character, a woman who was a child in the concentration camps and who testifies against Hanna in the trial.

At the end of the film, Michael goes to visit the woman as a gesture of–who knows?–obligation? absolution? an effort to arrive at understanding?–and finds that she is living in sprawling Upper East Side opulence.

And, quite frankly, that she’s a cool, hardened, pragmatic woman who cuts through pleasantries and is unwilling to make Michael’s visit an easy one.

He has never confessed his truths to anyone, so it’s strange, perhaps, that he’d choose her, particularly as she lacks, as she says, both the interest and the will to listen to them and provide him the catharsis he’s seeking.

She’s one character type among many representing victimization and survival: unforgiving, still angry after all these years, yet, in a sense, moving on–indeed, moved on–determinedly crafting the kind of life that others were equally determined to prevent her from building and enjoying.

What’s really “riveting” about this movie, then, is not the all-star actors in the roles that are likely to win awards. It’s this woman we’d like to be forgiving and sympathetic (empathic, at least) after all these years, and who steadfastly refuses to be that person. She makes us sit with uncomfortable truths, with endings and relationships that aren’t neat or conclusive. And she does it so well–much more convincing in her role than Winslet, actually–that we leave the theatre a little disturbed. Could we forgive? Are we forgiving? Are transformation and resolution possible?

What? You want me to answer those questions?

Reader photo: grewlike (Flickr creative commons)