Camila

This week’s film was entitled Camila and is taking place in the country of Argentina. The main characters in the movie are Camila: a strong willed, passionate, romantic that belongs to a wealthy family. Ladislao Gutierrez the innocent priest who goes against his vows to the Catholic Church in order to be with Camila and Adolfo O’Gorman father to Camila. The entrance to the movie begins when Camila’s grandmother arrives to the O’Gorman’s farm in order to serve her house arrest duties in result to being involved in a scandalous love affair with a royalist interim viceroy.  Camila and her grandmother tend to spend time together reading love notes of the relationship between Camila’s grandmother and the royalist. Ladislao arrives on the scene when Camila is confessing her sins of her dream with a man who she is romantically fascinating about to the Father and realizes that her confessor is someone new. She then sees for the first time Ladislao (the Father) and the romance blossoms between the two until they are finally recognized at a party and are shot to death ending the life of their unborn baby as well.

Camila is portrayed as a woman of character who knows what she wants and does anything possible to be with who she loves (Ladislao) regardless of the consequences. In a majority of movie roles during this time its rare to see a male portrayed as the innocent sheep yet Bemberg’s sense of empowering women with a role such as Camila’s does just that. Steven’s talks about the reality of the story and how it is perceived in the movie. For example in the movie, Adolfo (Camila’s father) is a man of anger, hostility, and rage yet Stevens points out that the true identity of Adolfo was less menacing and more sympathetic towards his daughter, Camila. Does a role of a father who is seen as loving and caring capture the same feel the movie gives with a father who is uncaring and violent? It doesn’t and therefore some factual characters must be changed in order to grab a true sense of feel for the love that Camila and Ladislao have for one another. The true character of Adolfo was a father who waited for his daughter’s return even five days later after he had notice that the two had left on the sixtenth of the month before sending his letter out to authorities. Steven’s also points out that Camila is friends with Rosa’s daughter who speaks with her father in order to spare the life of Camila yet in the movie Bemberg leaves out this scene. Leaving this particular scene in would disrupt the sorrow we feel for the lovebirds.

Bemberg captures the main foundation of love and turns it into a remarkable movie. She emphasis on a role of women that is newly scene in films, and portrays the story very similar to the actual event. Stevens writes about the few minor events that were left out in the movie yet for the most part this movie is based on a true story and is well played out.