One
of the Twentieth Century’s bloodiest assaults on religious freedom happened in
the western hemisphere. It was perpetrated
by “revolutionary” socialist president Plutarco Calles, whose iron-fisted
anti-clerical policies inspired a real grassroots revolution. By the 1930’s an uneasy and imperfect peace
had been brokered, but scattered bands of Cristero resistance fighters held out
as best they could. One of the final
squads grapples with their destiny in Matías Meyer’s The Last Christeros (trailer here), which screens
during the 2012 Seattle International Film Festival.
Mexico
is still a land of wide vistas John Ford could love, but it is steadily closing
in on the Cristero remnants. Pursued by
a company of Federales, Col. Florencio Estrada’s troops are running low on
everything, including bullets. Word
reaches them of an amnesty, which some of the men are willing to consider. However, Estrada has been down that road
before. Calles had violated the terms of
truces before and the period of his unelected “Maximato” was still
underway. Though he misses his wife and
daughters, Estrada has long since realized he will meet his end through this
war, one way or another.
To
establish the stakes of the Cristero revolution, Meyer opens the film with the
1969 oral history recording of Francisco Campos, who very well may have been
the last Cristero. However, that is
about as deeply as the film delves into the political, historical, and
religious significance of the civil war.
Instead, Last Christeros (for
some reason, the international title carries the Anglicized “h,” while most
references to the Cristeros maintain the original spelling) is an
impressionistic depiction of the trying conditions endured by the weary freedom
fighters. Theirs is not an existential
life though. Rather, they live for a
purpose.
Though
the ensemble consists largely of neophyte actors, they all look convincingly
gaunt and weathered. Alejandro Limon is
particularly haunting as the dedicated (and/or resigned to his fate)
Estrada. Yet, the picture’s defining
work is that of cinematographer Gerardo Barroso, who creates painterly-like
tableau of the rugged terrain and hardscrabble villages the Cristeros silently trudge
through. Galo Duran’s evocative
soundtrack also helps set an appropriately wistful mood.
