The God I believe in must be responsible for all the evil as well as for all the saints. He has to be a God made in our image with a night-side as well as a day-side." Il console onorario crede che il nascituro sia suo figlio e smette di bere. Vuole cambiare, ravvedersi, iniziare una nuova vita, se mai possibile.

The characters are as only Greene could create - hilarious and heartbreaking, banal and so beautiful. Eduardo’s interactions with these folks, and his sardonic observations of them, are marvelous. Noting the poor furnishings of a fellow (not immediately terminal) Englishman: Il medico Eduardo Parr, nato in Paraguay da genitori inglesi, è interpretato da Richard Gere, all’epoca 34enne, nel pieno del suo periodo di maggior successo. First handicap is the casting of Richard Gere as the dispirited Englishman. Actor’s accent only manages to stay on course when his lines consist of five words or less. Acting honors easily fall to Michael Caine as the small-time, dipsomaniacal diplomat. Character in the book was in his 60s, but Caine proves an ideal choice. Bob Hoskins registers strongly as a heartless but engaging South American police chief. Despite Plarr warning the dissidents that Fortnum has no value to the authorities, the group proceed with their demand for the release of ten political prisoners. Plarr travels to Buenos Aires in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the British ambassador to intervene. On his return, Plarr learns from Perez that his father has been killed a year earlier when trying to escape.I saw now I was living a lie by not admitting to being the broken type of washed-up dude Jesus came to save: Plarr. The only way He'd save me too.

This story arises from the horrible seventies in South America. Dr. Eduardo Plarr, a Paraguayan exile? expat? refugee? is living in Argentina, having had to leave his English father in Asunción as a young boy, because of his father’s efforts to resist the reprehensible General Strossner - the vicious torturing dictator supported by the USA - who ruled Paraguay from 1954 to 1989 - with uninterrupted repression and cruelty. E' una storia magistrale, con ritmi da film e dialoghi sopraffini. Tutti i personaggi, siano essi principali o comprimari, sono pensati per essere indimenticabili. Un affresco corale degno di un grande narratore.He takes his time to set the scene and introduce his characters in their ‘torpid Argentinean city whose only visible cultural institution is the brothel’, and although there is in fact a great deal of action, he plays out the line of the story slowly, until the last 3 chapters when it seems as though inevitable execution of the mistakenly-kidnapped hostage is imminent. Funeral in Berlin. Photograph: Allstar/PARAMOUNT/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar 35. Funeral in Berlin (1966)