Customer Reviews

Last Supper, The

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4 star:		(4)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The demand for sugar brought the demand for labor and the demand for control over the labor. The Last Supper was an excellent movie in the way opening one's eyes to the use of Christianity as a means of control. Throughout the movie the Count, the owner of a Spanish plantation, is trying to use Christianity through the Padre and through guilt to cause the slaves to work better for him. He plays the neutral role as he allows Don Manuel, the overseer, to keep the slaves working and allows the father to teach them about reaching paradise if they follow their masters here on this earth. Eventually the slaves revolt after he lets 12 of them eat at his table in a recreation of the last supper. He realizes that he gave them too much. He does not want another revolt and graphically shows what will happen to those who go against his authority. Those who do not appreciate how much he has done for them. However, one of the twelve who sat at the table runs free, hope is still alive.

From the times I watched Viridiana with all its wholeness expresiveness, I had never watched another striking Latin American movie made with such fierceness and dark poetry.
The last supper is nor more neither less, a parable, a powerful and sad story that describes the slow decay process around a family immersed in their ancient glories, unable to asimilate and understand what's going on outside of their geografic limits.
Gutierrez Alea gave us the super masterpiece of the Latin American cinma: Memories of the underdevelopment, a merciless portrait about the crude reality of Cuba in 1968.
After having been a public fact and having received all the honors, he insisted to return with his well know bitterness from several angles, and finally in 1976 he decided to get into the soul, and the ancestral cuban codes: the religious sincretism, the racism, the superb, the old glories and the absolute lack of respect for the human being, and we will be able to watch all those aspects throughout this outstanding picture.
The sequence in the Supper when the master decide to join all his slaves to enjoy a dinner will become a true hell after the hidden spirits appear after drinking wine. Add that powerful statement pronounced by the leader of the slaves whn he masks with a pig head and says: "One datty the lie died the thruth while it was sleeping and since then the body of the truth walks around the world with the head of the untrue" still resounds in my mind and spirit.
Go for this unusual and strong film.

Some movies have great stories or great writing. This has both. A plantation slaveowner convinces (himself) that he
is moral and benevolent. Imagining himself in the Christ role, the slaveowner stages a formal dinner - a last supper - by inviting 12 black slaves to dine with him. Why stage this dinner? The slave master believes the blacks will thank him for his "goodness." Instead, the plantation owner lets loose the Africans' passions, hatred, and desperation for freedom. A slave revolt follows. In response, the slave owner forgets all about Christ as he ruthlessly hunts and punishes the rebellious blacks...however one slave evades capture and wins his bid for freedom. This is a unique and provocative film about the African experience in Cuba.

Intelligent political drama about a slave owner trying to soothe his conscience by inviting
12 of his slaves to eat with him Easter week, in imitation of the last supper. The set-up
and rebellion ending are a bit obvious and heavy handed, but the long, theatrical middle,
where the master and slaves slowly get drunk and reveal themselves, and the complex
contradictions of religion and commerce has moments of real brilliance.

As clear as the film's politics are, they're not simplistic. The slave owner has moments
of humanity, and the slaves are not only innocent and pure. Ultimately, all are
victims of the system they're trapped in.

I don't know what's sadder - that this important film is out of print and virtually
impossible to get, or the terrible quality of the DVD version that was around (and that
people are now asking +$100 for). This deserves a good, serious upgrade and re-release.

This film exemplifies what Christian hypocrites did to decimate the African world-view. My favorite scenes involved storytelling, done in the traditional African manner, by different slaves. Christianity was a great tool of oppression and domination, and this film shows it.

The movie has an interesting idea that encouraged me to watch it in its entirety. The weakness is the script, with long dialogues that seem disconnected from each other, making the movie seemignly slow and long. The actors are natural and the movie is shot in the perfect background and environemnt.

Great movie! It is a must see for people interested in Latin-American or Spanish American Studies.

I know the title of this comment may be questionable. The movie depicts the tension between the powerful, wishing to reach a narcisistic climax (be like Christ), and the abused wishing to reach freedom. The result, bizarre and painful, is presented as a fable for humankind.