La Pastorela
The Battle for the Soul

La Pastorela is the story of shepherds journeying to Bethlehem to see the Christ Child.  This time, in the Luis Valdez movie, the added item is the point of view of Gila, a teenager whose parents are farm workers.  She resents the poverty she lives in and the fact that her parents are not overly concerned about it.  Her brothers want a Nintendo, and instead they get "cheap plastic."  Like Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, she feels out of place in a world that can no longer hold her ambition.  Our young heroine is enraptured by the consumer world she sees all around her yet cannot participate in.  Struck on the head in the church during the La Pastorela performance, she dreams her way, as did Dorothy, to a resolution.

While I have not seen the play La Pastorela , this version incorporates contemporary issues alongside the Christmas story.  The chief issue; the desire for power and wealth.  Gila wants what she cannot have, believing the things she is denied are a barometer of the overall welfare of her family, instead of the values her parents believe in.  During her "dream" of La Pastorela she encounters the archangel Michael and acquires traveling companions to Bethlehem, the shepherds of the play.  On the journey they are faced with three moments of temptation that are potential detours from their goal.  The temptations illustrate the issues married to the Christmas story.

The first temptation is to the shepherds, especially the one left to guard the sheep.  The larger group, offered a warm fire, has been transformed into sheep.  The one left as human is offered the opportunity to be his own boss, and no longer be derided and used by the others.  It is an attractive offer, and he takes it.  He does not know that the enlarged flock he has power over includes his companions.  Gila, off to gather firewood with her male friend Barto, arrives and struggles with the lead demon, who proclaims humans to be no better than sheep.  The archangel arrives to save the day and the humans resume their form.

The opportunity for power over others is nearly irresistible for the sole shepherd.  He has been on the receiving end of such power, and cannot stop himself from taking on the very role that has caused him pain.

The second temptation involves sex and sexual power.  In this case, the shepherds are confronted by a would be holy man, accompanied by beautiful dancing girls.  While the others dance off with the girls, the hermit remains.  His loneliness and isolation has fostered a false sense of superiority, masquerading as humility.  Or so the disguised demon tells him.  What he really needs is a pretty young woman.   Gila, ordered to fix dinner (an order concurred in by Barto), resents her delegation as chief cook.  Angry that her companions have left as the meal is ready to eat, she throws it away.  Then she sees Barto, dressed like a young man from the ‘hood and driving a low rider, in the arms of another female.  She is hurt by his apparent betrayal, all the more stinging because she accepted a subservient role.  It makes her more like her mother, a reality she is already facing.  The hermit, on the hunt for a beautiful young woman, arrives and chases after Gila.  Once more the archangel intervenes and once more the demons are banished.

Gila is young and ready to explore love, but she does not want to wind up like her mother, cooking for a large family that is always expanding.  The hermit, offered the dream of a youthful wife, succumbs to the appeal to his virility and a false sense of entitlement.  Relationships between men and women are reduced to sex, and it is sex which is being sold to the hermit and his friends.

The final temptation is offered by the Devil himself and is a direct appeal to the desire for wealth.  He offers jewels and gold if the travelers will join him and cease their journey to Bethlehem.  He reminds them that the Christ Child lives and dies in poverty, and why should they pass up a chance to live well?  Why follow the path laid out by the Christ Child, which is full of misery.  The shepherds again are distracted and ready to succumb.  Gila resists, and the Devil holds up a mirror that reflects her own darkness back to her.  She is more like them than she cares to admit, why resist the very things that she wants?  The archangel, this time joined by a small army, arrives to do battle with the Devil, which ends as expected.

When Gila awakens from her dream, she is ready to accept the values of her family, especially the values espoused in the play.  The battle for her soul, occurring within the context of the play, ends with her firmly in control.  She is ready to stand up to the temptations of a society that values wealth and power over the love of a family and the relationships that exist between people.  Her baby brother matters more to her than the Christmas gifts she had criticized.  Once again the shepherds, possessing only virtue, win.

A Comment on Robert Beltran as the Devil:
Robert plays the Devil, Lucifer, in this movie.  He wears a veil that masks his outer beauty, even as he is surrounded by the darkness of evil.  His actual interactions are somewhat limited, until he offers the final temptation to the shepherds, and then battles with Michael.  The movie itself is a morality play, couched in modern issues, the outcome is known in advance.  How could God not win this encounter?  All the same, Robert's portrayal of the conceited Lucifer, convinced he cannot love or be loved on any terms other than his own, rings true.