Customer Reviews

The Pope's Toilet

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After reading some of the not so good reviews (and the several glowing reviews) I was impelled to respond. "The Pope's Toilet" is a very poignant story with a subtle religious message based on a real event. I have read and seen much about religion, but this film presented the idea more effectively than most. It also helped me understand the grinding and relentless poverty, and petty corruption, that perhaps defines many third world countries. It is hard to understand how viewers living in this country could say it was a boring, so-so film. I would recommend it to every mature and discerning viewer. . .

This movie is touching, poignant, and heartfelt, while still being realistic and interesting. It's an empathetic portrayal of some poor families in small-town Uraguay, who are human and close-knit, and have aspirations to better their lives through capitalistic endeavor after learning that the Pope would visit their town to give a speech. Of course, they learn in the end that capitalistic investment has risks!

It's title originally threw me off, as it didn't sound like something I wanted to watch. But once I started watching it, the pathos of the main character is very touching, as he strives to build a fancy pay toilet and capitalize on the predicted thousands of Brazilian visitors to the Pope's speech. He really wants to build a better life for his family, rather than continuing the pathetic scrapping out a living being a bicycle smuggler. The movie builds real tension as he works with all his might against time and the forces pushing against him, because you don't know whether he will succeed or tragically fail. (For the ending, watch it for yourself and see!)

I really liked the insight into the characters and relationships in this small slice of the South American world. Of course, it's just a movie, but if it rings true, then many wealthier persons in the developed world would envy the close friendships and sense of community that is displayed here.

It certainly is a budget film but well played and directed. Awesome insight into life in Uruguay. The story itself is so so. I recommend renting it but not buying it.

A town in northern Uruguay, 60km from the Brazilian border, is excited about the impeding papal visit. Residents discuss ahead of time how to prepare their town for such an honor. The local TV station hypes up the visit, interviews its people and we learn that many of the residents had taken out loans to beautify their homes and town for the visit and to sell goods for visitors from Brazil.

It's a touching enough story. The plot evolves around one poor family of husband Beto, a smalltown smuggler riding an old one-speed into Brazil for goods he can sell at a profit in town. He thinks himself above his simple-thinking wife. He, afterall, uses his "thinking cap" and shemes up ways to make a living. But if only he had paid attention to her idea of profiting from the papal visit!

Apparently a lot of other bicyle-riding smugglers do this for a living, as the disinterested border guards let most through without stopping (unless they are black). The Brazilians don't care much for these poor Uruguayans who keep cycling across the border, and the Uruguayans seem quite content with their lives.

All around you is poverty. Stray dogs stroll around town looking for handouts. Old men sit in front of their homes chatting with neighbors. The flat, green fields around Melo are the backdrop of this movie, and all the neighbors seem to get along in their communal poverty. It really doesn't look like a town the Pope would or should visit.

Carmen, Beto's loyal wife, despairs of her husband's grandiose ideas but supports him anyway. Their daughter Silvia (who has dreams of being a radio announcer one day), somehow is the most beautiful creature in this movie seems to be accepting of her fate yet sees the family savings go to waste for the papal visit.

Beto makes a lot of smuggling attempts just to make enough money to buy the supplies he needs for his toilet. He even trains his wife and daughter in how to approach tourists and sell them the use of the toilet. Some of the scenes are quite heartbreaking, because even though there's no doubt that Beto loves his wife and daughter, he also has a violent, drunken side to him. And for him, there would be nothing better than buying a motorbike from the profits of that toilet.

But why would the Pope come to such a down-trodden town that doesn't even have plumbing? The townsmen don't see it that way. To them the Pope is coming because he loves them. The media hype up the visit; up to 300,000 people could be coming to Melo and this is going to make a lot of poor people in town much, much richer!

Here is where the movie becomes a hidden message of blind religious faith and political manipulation. In the end the papal visit doesn't quite turn out as planned. The Pope (actual footage of his real visit to Melo in 1988) gives his short speech in Spanish and then goes back to his Popemobile and drives on.

"Is it over?" asks Carmen as she watches the Pope via a town's small black and white TV. The TV commentator continues to smile and smalltalk about the grandiose visit.

This movie was tenderly portrayed. The actors seemed so real in their characters. The town always played a role in this movie, either up close with its cracked facades, or as a dirty village in a riverplain. In the end the viewer wants to step inside the town and give everyone a hug for everything they did for the papal visit.

I enjoyed this movie. I predicted the end accurately but there is more to this story. It's about faith, family bonds, neighborly devotion and dreams, as well as the manipulation the Catholic Church uses on its followers.

Charming vistas in Uraguay and a peak into lifestyles, but not much held my interest as far as plot or acting. Not much memorable about this film; in fact, it was a bit boring.

One of the most touching movies I ever seen.
Those that know the area of the globe (small frontier towns between Uruguay and Brazil) can appreciate the realism of this movie depicting the people, social life, struggles, and geography; for those that do not know the area, this movie is an enjoyable learning experience.
Only these excellent actors could bring this excellent story (base on actual events) to the screen with such level of realism and entertainment value.

Of course the dvd came right away and the price was right,,,, but amazon offered some other "digital" version of the movie that I think I could have downloaded,,,if I could only have figured it out. If they continue to offer this "digital" verision, the instructions need to be better,

A poignant film about the poverty-ridden residents of Melo, Uruguay, who spend what little they have to capitalize on the thousands of tourists they believe will swarm Melo to see Pope John Paul II. Beto is the film's principal character. He makes his living bicycling into Brazil to smuggle goods back to Melo shopkeepers. Beto hatches the most grandiose money-making scheme of all -- to build an indoor toilet for the anticipated crowds. Using his wife's pin money for their daughter's education, Beto builds his toilet. The crowds never arrive, and the residents of Melo are left poorer than before. The film is based on Pope John Paul II's 1988 visit to Melo in which only three hundred visitors arrived out of the predicted thousands.