Chapter 7: Romero (1989)

I first watched the movie Romero (Duigan, 1989) as a teenager during a Catholic catechism class. Growing up in a fairly conservative area (California’s Central Valley) and church, I was immediately struck with the themes of the film, many of them outlined in the above excerpt. Still, the reasons we were given for watching the film didn’t center on the context of U.S ‘intervention’ against El Salvador, the concept of liberation theology, and/or the exploitative conditions of modern capitalism. Instead, we were told the film served as an example of someone standing up for, and willing to die for their (Catholic) faith.