The Pope's Toilet ("El Bano Del Papa") Film Review

1 hr. 32 mins.

Starring: Cesar Troncosco, Virginia Mendez, Mario Silva, Virginia Ruiz, Nelson Lence

Directed by: Cesar Charlone, Enrique Fernandez

MPAA Rating: NR

Rating: *** stars (out of 4 stars)

Filmmaker Cesar Charlone and first-timer Enrique Fernandez helm a quaint tale of hardship and heartwarming humor in the visually arresting El Bano del Papa (translation: "The Pope's Toilet"). Although not the best imaginative movie title ever to grace a matinee sign, The Pope's Toilet resonates with a distinctive warmth and sense of reality and purpose. This is a noteworthy narrative that shines a poignant spotlight on the allure of Latin American cinema and the urgency of societal struggle that routinely persists within a desperate South American region.

Charlone (director of photography for Fernando Meirelle's captivating "City of God") and co-director Fernandez intensively chronicle the trial and tribulations of an impoverished Uruguayan family during the late eighties as they get ready to capitalize financially on the anticipated arrival of the Holy Father to their poor village of Melo. The quieted urgency and unique characterizations gives The Pope's Toilet a bittersweet taste that delves in the contrasting realm of poetic charm and surfacing turmoil. Gently raw and absorbingly effective, the collaboration of moviemakers Charlone and Fernandez is soothingly melodic, disturbing, and infectious in its wittiness about day-to-day survival in the name of religious awakening.

The aging Beto (Cesar Troncosco) is at a crossroads in his middle-aged years. In order to provide for his destitute family that includes his wife (Virginia Mendez) and teen daughter (Virginia Ruiz), he has to smuggle contraband across the Brazilian border into his poverty-stricken surroundings in Melo on a rusty bicycle. This illegal chore is indeed a necessity to Beto's mounting economical woes. Fortunately, Beto discovers the localized news: the significance of Pope John II's 1988 brief visit to Melo on his way to touring the rest of Latin America. Feeling opportunistic and resourceful, Beto plans to boost his potential fortunes on the historic papal visitation by taking advantage of the expected 50,000 visitors' bladders.

Specifically, Beto's money-making agenda involves building a gaudy latrine in hopes that the pope's legion of minions will flock to his ragged property and pay for the privilege of relieving themselves in his makeshift rest stop. Due to the hysteria of Pope John II's upcoming presence Beto really believes that his concocted scheme can ease the monetary burden that hovers over him and his loved ones like a dark grayish cloud about to burst in the sky. The question remains as this: will Beto realize that his foolish notion about charging the pope's masses the usage of his special-made toilet is utterly preposterous in concept? How about the mere thought of his questionable actions continuing to hurt the family's chances at fiscal normalcy?

Instinctively, The Pope's Toilet speaks volumes of the emotional weariness and disillusionment of men such as Beto that invest their current malaise in the far-fetched fantasy of grandeur. The intended desire to want something better for your family at any cost is admirable but also self-destructive to a certain degree. Granted that Beto is a strategic yet sympathetic simpleton whose gesture of trying to do the right thing and sacrifice for his familial cause (even if it means doing it in over-the-top, wasted fashion) is misguided at every possible angle. However, Charlone and Fernandez turn Troncosco's lovaable loser Beto in an embodiment of self-inflicted frustration yet allowing this man's psychological vacancy for manufacturing whatever faith he maintains in his lopsided reasoning for curing his endless plight in immaterial life.

Overall, the sobering The Pope's Toilet is unassumingly edgy and uneven in its dramatic tone at times. Still, this engaging film possesses some major heart and off-base spirit about the less fortunate living on the outskirts of seediness and desperation. After all, these needy souls have that God given right to hope and dream for relief in many areas pertaining to human frailty-even in the sacred shadows of a revered Holy Man that couldn't possibly heal the prospects of pandering disbelief among his ardent global believers.