Was anyone else kind of infuriated by the blatant Catholic conservatist anti-abortion propaganda that this fuzzy film came down to in the end? Not a scare to be found and after seeing it, I realized it was all just an anti-abortion propaganda movie and I was let down and very bored...
Any thoughts?
thanks for the warning.
shareDidn't see it that way at all. I'm assuming that you are American, no offense, but a lot of Americans tend to see propaganda where none is. We Europeans don't do that. And neither G-d, Devil nor Heaven was mentioned once in this movie. Yes, the neighbour had saints all over her house, but Spain - though very Cathlic - is at the same time one of the most broad-minded and non-judgmental countries there is.
shareYou've got to be kidding me. When, at the end, the lady curls up into the fetal position while repeating "I want to live... I want to live" to herself (and then a superimposition of an actual fetus is laid over her body), you're going to honestly tell me that there's not a message to the viewer there?
I wouldn't go so far as to call it "propaganda", but it definitely wants you to feel a certain way about abortion.
Either way, the movie kind of sucked. There was too much stuff that went unexplained, and it was ultimately just an atmospheric experience that didn't stick to any sort of concrete plot too well.
EDIT (1 Day Later): Actually, upon further reflection, you know what? This sh!t was DEFINITELY propaganda.
Several people have expressed bemusement over the inclusion of a (probably) gay character, when that subplot never actually ended up going anywhere. At first, I thought it was just there to be there, too, but once I got to thinking about it more, I was reminded of the smug words of the religious right (the exact demagogue's name escapes me at the moment): "...lesbians are subverting the innocence of heterosexual women, and convincing them that abortion is okay only because they are jealous that they themselves can't have children."
Whatta load. Apparently, traditionalist attitudes like these are prevalent in "progressive Spain", too. And I'm just starting to believe that the hints at sapphic desire in this movie were the filmmakers' way of suggesting that the doctor doesn't appreciate "the beauty of life" because she is gay (read: evil), and wants to squelch the "most awesome power that a woman wields" because she feels insecure about her own womanliness.
Likewise, notice how every girl we see coming into the doctor's office to get an abortion is portrayed as kind of stupid and slutty? The first girl was sleeping with two guys, and wanted an abortion because she didn't know which one was the father. The second one was knocked up by a married man, and didn't want to deal with bearing his child. The protagonist got an abortion because she was impregnated by a man who ended up not being interested in her.
The souls of the aborted children, apparently, are the spectres in this film, and they come back to haunt the women who have gotten rid of them. Hence the title, La Culpa, or "Blame"/"Guilt" in English. But where does male responsibility factor into all this? In fact, I don't think there was a single male character in this entire movie. If La Culpa is to be believed, pregnancy is 100% a female's domain. Men play no part in the creation and rearing of a child, and they get to comfortably dodge the blame here by never even being present to feel any "fatherly guilt" themselves.
This movie stinks. I don't like the message at all, and I'm really insulted that there are still self-righteous *beep* out there who are content to sit on their high horses and condemn women --and ONLY women-- for acting every bit as irresponsible as the men they procreated with.
I´m not american (From the country, I´m argentinian so its on the american continent) and saw this in theaters on a film festival. At the end everyone was boooing the film and trowing things at the screen. I have never seen a public so angry with a movie. And I share the anger, it was idiotic pro-life propaganda, nothing more...
"I live in the weak and the wounded..."
thanks for putting a stop to the anti American suggestion. I don't get how what country I am from has anything to do with how insulted I can be by such a film. This is about social and biological morals, not about what friggin country the viewer is from. I can't go on ONE single film board without reading something about how ridiculous Americans are. This is a film site, not a site to bash on all Americans. Stick to the subject, and don't assume anything about someone in a derogatory way. This is not the place.
shareI wouldn't call it propaganda, but it does seem to have a very conservative moral message in there somewhere, however muddled it may be.
Notice there are no male characters in the film. Not that males don't play an important role in La Culpa; the characters are only mentioned by name. Of course, this is intentional, and it's somewhat groundbreaking for the genre, but you have to wonder what the writer/director are trying to say overall with this story once it takes its spin in the last 15 minutes.
And I still can't get over that one of the main characters in this stonefaced drama was an abortion-pushing predatory lesbian. Seriously!?
I'm still pissed off there was no killer fetus in this! It was totally leading up to that, and something so gross and absurd would have overshadowed the other obnoxious elements for me. But noooo, instead we get some dumb lady who was forced to have an abortion by her boss who wants to boink her, which apparently drives her to become a murderous schizophrenic, taking on the personality of her pissed off aborted fetus. ARG!
Ugh, rent Dumplings instead. At least THAT makes sense. La Culpa is not scary in the slightest and makes you feel like you're watching a pro-life morality play.
Hair so beautiful that even you, Inga, once asked if you could touch it!
I don't really see how this was a pro-religious movie. The hallucinations the woman had made Catholic teachings and priests look like kooky freaks. I don't think really any religous slant was made with any positive presentation in the film. If one is seeing some great religious conspiracy in this movie, I'd say they are viewing it with too much bias. I'm quite religious and I found the religious bits in this film sad, stereotypical and so pathetic as to be useless for any relevancy. According to the film, the only thing religion contributed to the woman was guilt, which makes sense because she obviously didn't get experience with legitimate Christianity. So the film was actually anti-religion in that regard.
As for the movie being pro-choice, that has merit. And that's okay. Heaven forbid a movie that presents a different side of the coin be shown. It might make people think and stimulate conversation.
Exactly--Catholics don't come across well in this movie. And the horror genre seems an odd choice for someone pushing conservative agenda.
Movie plots are not straightforward representations of a writer or director's belief system. The other short paired with this on DVD, "Spectre," is also about abortion, which does seem suspicious. Yet that one also portrays anti-abortionists in a bad light.
But, abortion is an emotional issue, so it makes sense that people can't watch a movie like this without immediately feeling that their beliefs are being threatened.
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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"--Pres. Merkin Muffley
I am not sure if the intention of director Narciso Ibáñez was to shoot a piece of anti-abortion propaganda. Probably it wasn't his intention. However IT DOES FEEL like propaganda. Besides the plot is utterly ludicrous and for a "horror" movie this movie was boring as hell!
awful movie!
'Blame' was about as much anti-abortion propoganda as I'm the reincarnation of Genghis Khan.
I didn't for a second get the impression that the women having abortions were stupid or slutty. I did get the impression that most of them had been left in a very difficult position, particularly in terms of jobs and relationships. As for letting men of the hook, I'd urge that person to watch the film again. The majority of men mentioned are absentee fathers who failed to use precautions and left their now-pregnant girlfriends to sort the whole mess out, having buggered off back to their wives or just done a runner. And let's not forget that the religious 'pro-life' concepts are openly described as "old-fashioned, stupid principles". The only other people in the film that are vaguely religious (and in Spain is almost impossible to separate Catholicism from anti-abortionism) are a pair of lunatics who believe Christ miraculously inhabits the white dust on their fingers.
Myself, I wouldn't be surprised if the film's approach to abortion wasn't one of the reasons why it was never shown on Spanish TV. Abortionists portrayed as caring, competent doctors performing an important (and even necessary) service for women who have been deserted by the fathers of their children, and a service that goes on a lot more than the Spanish 'moral majority' would like to admit- always behind-the-scenes, of course. The official right-wing religious viewpoint is that abortionists are monsters, the perpetrators of the 'children's genocide'. That most definitely did *not* come across in Blame.
I tend to agree with you here, jim, & well said. It's apparent that both sides can be argued quite easily, but my take on this film leans solidly w/your perspective.
"Hey, how come Andrew gets to get up? If he gets up...we'll all get up...IT'LL BE ANARCHY!!"
Well, maybe USA will invade Spain now. You have a good excuse for that, the blatant propaganda against abortion, lol!!
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No, you're right. That was the message. Regardless of the moral POV though, it remains a pretty darned good story. I'm ferverently pro-choice but a storyteller is a storyteller. We all come from different cultures, points of view and moral tenets. I don't think it's BLATANT propoganda so much as a good story told from a certain cultural bias. As repugnant as the "message" was for me (and I do find it repugnant, as lesbianism was also disparaged) I remained enthralled. So, no disagreement here. Regardless of the biases (sp) of the writer, though, I applaud a good, creepy story done well.
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