Memories of a Penitent Heart 2016
Distributed by Good Docs
Produced by Cecilia Aldarondo
Directed by Cecilia Aldarondo
DVD , color and b&w, 74 min.
High School - General Adult
AIDS, Homosexuality, Latin Americans, Gender
Date Entered: 08/16/2017
Reviewed by Monique Threatt, Indiana University, Herman B Wells Library, Bloomington, INFilmmaker Aldarondo is six years old when her uncle Miguel visits the family in Puerto Rico. He has been living in New York for several years pursuing a career as an actor. Six months after his visit, the family learns that Miguel has died from cancer in a New York hospital. Later in life, Aldarondo discovers her grandmother’s scrapbook full of family photos of Miguel. She yearns to learn more about her absentee uncle. She senses that something is not quite right, and that perhaps the family has been hiding something from her. She decides to embark on a personal journey to learn more about the “mysterious” uncle whose portrayal in home movies and photographs turns out to be a contradiction to the gay lifestyle he lives in New York. She sets out on her journey with the knowledge that Miguel may have had a friend named Robert in New York.
Memories of a Penitent Heart is a heartwarming feature-length documentary that tries to weave together a narrative to reveal a man deeply conflicted between his Catholic faith, and being homosexual. The film slowly strips away several unresolved issues and emotions from family and friends ranging from Miguel's sexuality to the truth behind his cause of death, AIDS. The film also serves to bring about peace and closure not only to Miguel’s shunned lover, Robert (Bob), but also to the filmmaker who harnesses guilt towards her own family for abhorring Miguel and Robert’s relationship.
Unfortunately, as AIDS becomes a huge epidemic during the 1980s, the backlash against the LBGQT and non-LBGQT community is swift. Some call the disease "God's wrath," and many hospitals refuse admittance to persons suffering with the disease. Although Miguel/Michael’s family refuses to believe that he has AIDS, Bob knows the symptoms. On Miguel/Michael’s deathbed, not only do the family try to ban Bob from the hospital, but the grandmother asks him to repent his sins telling him that he is wicked and needs to be ‘saved’ to enter heaven. Much to the heartbreak of Bob, Miguel/Michael agrees to repent his homosexuality in order to enter heaven.
The filmmaker tries to reconcile the relationship between her mother (who is Miguel/Michael’s sister), and Bob. She sets up a meeting between the two, but there still lies the emptiness and unresolved hurt. The meeting is robotic and stale. We soon learn that the filmmaker’s mother felt abandoned by her brother when she was very young, and needed his support just as much as he needed hers. Nothing is resolved between the mother and Bob and they go their separate ways.
However, for the filmmaker, she learns a great deal about her uncle, and is in a better positon to express to her mother how awful it must have been for Miguel/Michael and Bob to feel mistreated by the family. Unfortunately, the mothers shows no true remorse on behalf of her or her family’s actions. Still, homophobia is still very much alive, and when you mix religion with body politics, nobody wins.
Includes archival footage, photographs, and interviews. Included are two discs, one in English and Spanish with English subtitles, and one disc in English and Spanish with Spanish subtitles.
I highly recommend this film for both public and academic libraries and is very useful for both Latin American and gender studies.
Awards
- Best Documentary, Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival