Customer Reviews

Ave Maria

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This stunning film by Eduardo Rosoff is actually the companion piece for "I, the Worst of All", and I cannot fathom why it has not been talked about more often. It takes place a century prior to Sor Juana's story, and it exposes the darker side both of the Spanish Conquest and of the Catholic Church. A beautiful mestizo girl, Maria Ines, has been left in a mixed monastery by her nobleman father. She is allowed to wear lay clothing and to indulge in her passion for science, all of which attracts the envy of both priests and one paticular nun. When her father dies, retribution for her superior intelligence is swift. Finally, she leaves all her money to the prior so he can build his dream cathedral, and goes back to her mother's people. The prior is poisoned by his second-in-command, who harbors an obsessive hatred for Ana Maria. Meanwhile, she realizes that the Indians are being exterminated by the Spaniards, who give them clothing contaminated with measles, and decides to fight them.

She is then joined by several of the nuns, including her former enemy, Clara. The new prior decides to exterminate her, kidnaps her, has her tried as a witch and burned at the stake. Clara is stabbed by a soldier and falls into the pyre to die with her friend. The two men who have loved Ana Maria return to the monastery to kill the prior, but he has already been poisoned by an older nun, who had discovered his treachery.

Tere Lopez Tarin delivers a powerhouse performance as Ana María, supported by Ana Torrent as Clara, Juan Diego Botto as Father Demian and Luis de Icaza as The Evil Prior. Ideal for classroom use!

Ave María is an amazong movie. I really don't want to tell you what is it about so that you can really see it by yourselves, but it is definitely a movie to be seen by all of us having two cultures in our blood. I am half Spanish and half Mexican as the main character of the movies is. And when you have two cultures, two religions, two different lives to live, there is a struggle in the soul for integration in which both parties feel they should have the whole you and it seems that one has to die in order for the other to live. There is misunderstanding inside and out. There is injustice inside and out and there is the struggle for the integration of two major cultures into one single heart. Beautiful picture I highly recommend it.