El film de las preguntas grandes

The Catholic Church doesn’t fare too well in the Oscar-nominated Mexican film “Il Crimen del Padre Amaro.” One priest in a small village sleeps regularly with a lonely widow and launders money for the local drug lord in exchange for money to build a new hospital. Another impregnates a young woman and forces her into an impossible position for a good Catholic girl: to have the baby and put it up for adoption or to have an abortion.

Other priests know what is going on and do nothing except watch soccer on television or eat and drink to the point of gluttony. One does act in what he sees as the best interests of his parishioners by preaching liberation theology, which in itself isn’t bad except that the well-meaning priest ends up tacitly condoning murder as a necessary crime in the fight for freedom.

Crime ─ and what that word means ─ is at the heart of this relentlessly depressing film, which works as an ironic study of theological excess and privilege. It won’t please everyone, and all its various parts don’t blend smoothly into a final statement (there are a few loose ends), but it does feature a terrific lead performance by Gael Garcia Bernal, who was so good in two other recent Mexican films, “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and “Amores Perros.”

And it does pose questions that beg answering.