The film Captain Pantoja & the Special Services was executed with the intention of looking & feeling just like the big-budget American Hollywood films that Director Francisco Lombardi apparently finds worthy of warranting mimicry. If this is considered the sole aim of the film, an adaptation of the Mario Vargas Llosa novel, than it is fair to call the film a success. In almost every other way, however -- & perhaps directly as a result of Lombardi's hollywood-esque ambitions -- the film is a vapid failure as a work of art.
The shortest cut of the film made available still drags on for over two hours worth of slick, slapstick chauvinism. While the premise of the plot -- theoretically rooted in real life events --is an admittedly absurd & fascinating one it is also surely one rife with complicated issues involving the sex trade, the way the military as a machine understands the use of human beings, rape, poverty, et. al. The understanding that this was a real event and not just a fictional fantasy dreamt up by some lonely soldier-turned-novelist only adds weight to the situation.
As with any historical happening & its subsequent translation into art or entertainment there are endless avenues by which the translator can approach & present the story. What we've been given by way of Llosa & Lombardi is a campy goofball comedy/love story, where all prostitutes are beauty queens anxiously lining up to please as many soldiers as possible, where no man is capable of distinguishing love from lust, & where the only voices of criticism against the institutionalized use of young women as sexual day-laborers is a Tartuffian, hypocritical morality-merchant or a jealous wife - who, without explanation, returns happily to her machine-like husband post-infidelity.
Sitting through scene after scene of smiling exploitation & situation after situation where Pantoja is shown to be seemingly crippling himself by his mindlessly subservient nature to the military, one can't shake the feeling that they are waiting for a punchline. The end of the film finally arrives, however, and no clear answers are given.
Was his punishment & relocation by the very people he served supposed to be a criticism of the nature of the state's relationship with those who serve it (& consequentially recognition of the exploitative nature of the 'Special Service'?) or is his continually cheerful obedience to his humble new task, with his dear wife & child at his side, meant to stand as a virtuous model of decency & self-sacrifice, with 'family' & 'love' standing as counterpoints to the sexual depravity of the prostitutes -- the very sexual depravity that the film paraded and glorified for 2+ hours, with silly whore-boats & cheap gags?
For a film so steeped in Hollywood sentimentalism & easily swallowed morals, no clear moral or political stance is made clear. This is not a testament to the subtlety of the filmmaking, but the result of taking a complex, nuanced situation & attempting to Disney-fy it, to no avail.
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One aspect of your entry I don't fully understand is whether you are blaiming Vargas Llosa also for the "disneyfication" of the plot. Of course, one can make the case that the novel already glosses over serious topics. (And here one can easily imagine the younger Vargas Llosa of The Time of the Hero telling a story of violence and amorality in the jungle). But, of course, Vargas Llosa didn't participate directly in the making of the film. (Of course, he also directed a version of his novel which has acquired the reputation of being one of the worst film ever made).
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