Amador

♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

Marcela (Magaly Solier) is an immigrant who decides to leave her boyfriend for not being able to give her the life he promised. She faints even before riding the bus, ends up in the hospital, finds out she is pregnant, and goes back home pretending nothing happened. She finds a job as a caregiver for an old man named Amador, who dies of natural causes after a few days. Since she badly needs the money, she does not mention anything to the man's family and instead tells them that he is okay whenever they call to ask. She hopes to keep up the charade until she gets her whole salary for the month.

The viewing experience has been ruined by Greenbelt 3's very sophisticated DVD player. Either that or their copy of the movie is pirated. A lot of people were complaining afterwards and so we did get a refund. The reason that I am giving this film only three clovers though is not that. The movie is boring. There are many long moments of awkward silence. The actress' acting is so subdued that you no longer have an idea if it is just bad (bad actress) or intentional (badly naive character). She speaks so slowly and only has one tone of voice regardless if she is angry, nervous, or sad.

The movie is funny because of the absurdities in the story. What we do not know is if it was intentionally made to be that way. The movie is so serious that there are scenes where the audience could not help but laugh. Amador's contribution to the film is substantial but to name it after him seems off, or maybe it is just a play with words since "amador" literally means "loving," which could be an allusion to how the characters have treated the old man. They love the guy but hey, they are just being pragmatic. Times are rough nowadays and everyone seems to be in a financial crisis.

Underneath the boring presentation, I like how the film gives the audience some issues to ponder on. For example, Amador tells Marcela that the clouds were made by God so he could hide behind them when he is ashamed. Later on she asks loudly, is God hiding because he is ashamed of what he has done, or of what we are doing? Cool. I also like how they make use of puzzles (yes, the pieces that form pictures) not just in the literal sense but also in trying to make a point about how life is similar to it. Marcela puts together the pieces of a picture cut in tiny pieces, which helps her with the decision on whether to leave her partner or not. Her boyfriend also does the same with the note Marcela wrote earlier about leaving him. In a way, after having done their respective puzzles, everything started to fall into place, and so some important realizations about life are met.

The ending is just not right, at least from a moral standpoint, but who am I kidding. I hate morality and the complications it brings to different issues that would otherwise be simple, but this is a different thing altogether and this is not the proper venue to discuss that. Do you want to know the ending? Do you want to know what happens when the daughter finds out that her father has been decomposing for how many weeks already before she found out about it? What happens to Marcela? Fine, you asked for it. I will give it to you. The next paragraph would be a spoiler, so stop reading now if you still plan on watching this because honestly, once I give away that twist, there won’t be anything else to hold your interest to keep you watching this until the end.

The daughter congratulates Marcela for a job well done. No, she does not want her father dead either, but according to her, his pension, although small, has been a big help in building their new house, where her father is supposed to have a room with a nice view of the sea. Too bad he did not get to experience it. In short, Marcela is free from any liability and was even given an advanced payment for the next month just to accompany the dead man’s corpse and make the government think that he is still alive, so they could still get his pension.

I know, it sounds so bad but after thinking about it I thought, nobody murdered the old man. He died of natural causes. There is nothing left to be done aside from giving him a decent burial. But then again, as already mentioned, times are rough. Surely, the father would not mind staying a bit longer if it meant money for his daughter. Wow, how utilitarian. I told you it is kind of absurd, but I also have to tell you that I liked the twist. Morbid much.