González

Gonzalez was one of five movies I got to see while attending the Chicago Film Festival in October. After seeing all the films, I had concluded that this film was my overall favorite. It had a good sense of movement and I liked the overall theme that it portrayed throughout the film.  Christian Díaz Pardo directed this film. Made in Mexico, this film gave me such a new way of thinking about evangelist and how the church works.

From the Chicago International Film Festival website;

“Spiraling into debt, González takes a job at a call center in a Christian cult’s headquarters, bilking money from its disciples. Fascinated with the charismatic televangelist, Pastor Elías (standout Carlos Bardem, Javier’s brother), González pleads with him to make him a pastor too, setting in motion a dangerous chain of events. A searing study of faith and fraud amid the global recession, González is a bracing thriller bolstered by its striking visuals and performances.”

 [youtube id=”X_My2SV6wao” width=”” height=”” wmode=”transparent” showinfo=”1″ autohide=”0″ quality=”auto]

The main actor, Harold Torres, was really great at showing the emotions of a person who was indeed of help. While watching the film, I was anticipating the time where he would kick some butt. There were times where I was also waiting for the Misirlou music to start once he had the guns. I liked the transition that he went through in the film as well. At first, we see Gonzalez as a clean, slick back, well-dressed man trying to find a job. As the film progressed, he comes less and less of the person he looked like at the opening scene.

I can see what the director wanted to get out of the movie. For me, the whole Evangelistic preaching is a little bizarre to me. It is so interesting to see that in the movie when I myself have witness some odd evangelistic people in my life. My church has hosted a “Revival” one year featuring a couple who went around and shared their testimony for everyone in the church community. They had some interesting stories to share while they preached for our church. Once they left, all the beans came out. Apparently, they were not married and were in the process of being divorced. Secondly most of their stories were made up. Some of them as I can recall were strangely a ‘miracle’ situation. This film showed that the church Gonzalez was working for was using their crowd to fork over money because it was the ‘Godly’ thing to do. Not only were these preachers overbearing, they were giving these people false hope. They were not in it for God, but rather than the money. I liked the overall ‘divide and conquer’ plot that this film had. It kept me on my seat and had many scenes of action.

Overall, this film was great. I could see myself watching this over again. Not many films instantly make me think this, and I think I liked the overall theme of it. I felt as though I got a resolution from this. Not only because it ended how I imagined, but I liked the way the director portrayed Gonzalez. I have always had interest in independent films, and this was a very entertaining one. I liked the Spanish version rather than it being an English version. I would give this an 4.5 out of 5 stars. It would be perfect, but there was this random part in the film where Gonzalez went into the house of his lover and had intercourse with her, which was not really needed in the movie.

One thing that happened was Andrea and I got to meet Mr. Gonzalez himself. #CarpeDM