The movie "La Fiesta del Chivo" ("Feast of the Goat") actually frightened me.I retired to Puerto Rico in 1986. Most of my life I lived in New York State. I traveled frequently and extensively for more than 30 years around the United States doing trade shows for large global companies. More recently, I visited the Dominican Republic a few times. I know many Dominicans living in Puerto Rico. Furthermore, I vacationed through Latin and South America. I learned from this experience the difference between a Latino and an American political culture. The movie "La Fiesta del Chivo" ("Feast of the Goat") actually frightened me.This movie is a about the brutal reign of Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, from 1930 up 1961 when he was assassinated. Rafael Trujillo was most definitely the "Devil" reincarnated. He was without a doubt a cruel psycho completely without decency or compassion for others. His specialty was to use his power to rape underage girls and degrade subordinates for petty reasons. Many of them would not dare protest. His subordinates followed him out of fear combined with greed that he may throw them a few crumbs as he robbed the economy of the Dominican Republic. What disturbed me the most about the movie is that I got the feeling that if Puerto Rico were not under the territorial clause of the United States Constitution, it could easily be ruled today by a dictator like Rafael Trujillo, Batista or any of the other Latin American dictators. The only Spanish-language republic in South and Latin America, which never had a dictatorship, is Costa Rica. The reason why Costa Rica was able to cultivate a national culture or mentality for continuous democracy is because it was never under the strong influence of Spain. It was left alone because it did not have gold or other mineral resources and was out of the way in the high mountains. It was isolated enough to avoid Spain's negative influence on its political development to be a democracy.I often wonder if these Spanish cultures of Latin Ameria do not understand how government by the people, of the people and for the people functions. What is frightening is that the overwhelming majority of the Dominican people worshiped and blindly loved the brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo. When he was assassinated, hundreds of thousands of Dominican people mourned and wept because of his death. Only a few knew or wanted to believe that he was the devil reincarnated. Only a very few Dominicans were joyful about his death. I will not bother to mention names, but here in Puerto Rico today there is group of political power brokers who have a leader capable of becoming a "Puerto Rican Trujillo." What stops this from happening is the presence of the United States Justice Department in Puerto Rico. I would not want to live in Puerto Rico if it was not under the American flag. The irony of history is that the United States government during the period of Rafael Trujillo's undemocratic rule actually supported him. They supported him because they decided he would keep the Dominican Republic from becoming communist. Trujillo knew how to use the fear factor to con the administrations of the United States, regardless of whether they were Democratic or Republican presidents, to support him as a leading Latin America anti-communist. He gave the false impression that he had a pro-America foreign policy. Unlike the Dominican Republic during the Cold War years, the United States government today is actually a safeguard to keep a dictator from coming to power in Puerto Rico. Since my arrival in 1986, there has been a steady parade of territorial officials being investigated, convicted and sent to federal prison for federal crimes. The parade is still going on. This process of federal investigations keeps the want-to-be "Rafael Trujillo's" from getting too powerful. Behind his back, the opponents of Trujillo refer to him as "The Goat." Currently, here in Puerto Rico one of the top government officials is also called "The Goat." (Can you guess who he is?) If the United States Justice Department and the U.S. Congress did not have the power of the"Territorial Clause of the United States Constitution," I would fear this Puerto Rican official called "The Goat" as I did "La Chivo" in this excellent movie.

As a Dominican, I can say the movie cannot be considered as the movie about the Trujillo government, but about the story of how some things were in those years, specially how difficult was for some women specially that were attracted by Trujillo, and how Urania's life changed after going to help his father reputation while going to the supposed "party" with Trujillo, that became into the Goat's party as the movie is named. I haven't read the book yet, but I like the movie and I recommend it movie. For people interested in knowing about Trujillo's era, also you can see "In the times of the butterflies", it is also more realistic about Trujillo's times.

I think The Feast of The Goat is a very good film, of course always taking into account that it is an adaptation of the novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, it is not a documentary, which means that not all the facts presented in the movie are real, some come from the imagination of the author. It you want to know what is real and what is not, then investigate about the Dominican history. This movie is a sad and interesting story of a woman that went through the same that many other women did in that time where the Dominican Republic belonged to Rafael Trujillo the Dictator for 30 years, they also show the atmosphere of fear and lack of respect for the human rights. The movie is located in the last years of the period so we can see the conspiracy to kill him, and the facts that leaded those people to do it. The performances of Tomas Milian as Trujillo and Stephanie Leonidas as young Urania were very convincing. The costumes were good but some of the ones Tomas Millian wears are big for him and it is very obvious. Isabella Rosellini is OK nothing to be remembered, she just does the job.

At last, Luis Llosa, our "international" Peruvian director, after making movies such as "Anaconda", has made a good movie. La Fiesta del Chivo (or "The Feast of the Goat") is a very good movie based on Mario Vargas Llosa's novel of the same title: it's powerful, emotive, and of high caliber.The movie tells the story of how the Dominican Republic's dictator, Trujillo, was killed, and also the story of a woman who was the victim of Trujillo's barbaric acts.The acting in the movie is very good. Isabella Rosselini is specially powerful as the grown-up Uranita, and Paul Freeman is believable and emotive as Agustín Cabral, Urania's father and "friend" of Trujillo. The rest of the cast is also good, and are a good complement for the main actors. Special mention to Tomas Milian, whose Trujillo is impressive, imposing and powerful.This is a truly good movie. It has great acting, competent direction, and an interesting and sometimes impacting story. (Spoilers - if you are a sensitive person, you MAY be affected by the rape scene.) This is a movie that truly deserves to be named along with the name of Mario Vargas Llosa - it's powerful, emotive and highly interesting.