The Pope's Toilet

A Truely excellent film
After reading some of the not so good reviews (and the several glowing reviews) I was impelled to respond. "The Pope's Toilet" is a very poignant story with a subtle religious message based on a real event. I have read and seen much about religion, but this film presented the idea more effectively than most. It also helped me understand the grinding and relentless poverty, and petty corruption, that perhaps defines many third world countries. It is hard to understand how viewers living in this country could say it was a boring, so-so film. I would recommend it to every mature and discerning viewer. . .

Touching & beautiful insight into lives in a small town in Uraguay
This movie is touching, poignant, and heartfelt, while still being realistic and interesting. It's an empathetic portrayal of some poor families in small-town Uraguay, who are human and close-knit, and have aspirations to better their lives through capitalistic endeavor after learning that the Pope would visit their town to give a speech. Of course, they learn in the end that capitalistic investment has risks!

It's title originally threw me off, as it didn't sound like something I wanted to watch. But once I started watching it, the pathos of the main character is very touching, as he strives to build a fancy pay toilet and capitalize on the predicted thousands of Brazilian visitors to the Pope's speech. He really wants to build a better life for his family, rather than continuing the pathetic scrapping out a living being a bicycle smuggler. The movie builds real tension as he works with all his might against time and the forces pushing against him, because you don't...

A moving story with political and religious undertones
A town in northern Uruguay, 60km from the Brazilian border, is excited about the impeding papal visit. Residents discuss ahead of time how to prepare their town for such an honor. The local TV station hypes up the visit, interviews its people and we learn that many of the residents had taken out loans to beautify their homes and town for the visit and to sell goods for visitors from Brazil.

It's a touching enough story. The plot evolves around one poor family of husband Beto, a smalltown smuggler riding an old one-speed into Brazil for goods he can sell at a profit in town. He thinks himself above his simple-thinking wife. He, afterall, uses his "thinking cap" and shemes up ways to make a living. But if only he had paid attention to her idea of profiting from the papal visit!

Apparently a lot of other bicyle-riding smugglers do this for a living, as the disinterested border guards let most through without stopping (unless they are black). The Brazilians...

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