THE STORY – Determined to fulfill his mother’s dying wish, Juan Preciado travels to Comala to find the father he never knew, a wealthy landowner named Pedro Páramo. But in Comala, nothing is as it seems. Juan speaks with someone, only to be informed that person has died. Deserted streets are suddenly teeming with life. Figures dissolve into soil or are washed away in a deluge. The closer Juan gets to locating his father, the more the realm of the dead eclipses that of the living, while Pedro Páramo’s infamy as a merciless tyrant only burgeons, Will Juan’s spirit be absorbed into the phantasmagorical tapestry of this place where the voices of those who have passed forever echo in the wind?
THE CAST – Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Tenoch Huerta, Dolores Heredia, Ilse Salas, Héctor Kotsifakis & Mayra Batalla
THE TEAM – Rodrigo Prieto (Director) & Mateo Gil (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 133 Minutes
“Pedro Páramo” is an epic of Latin American literature. An adaptation of the novel by the same name, by Juan Rulfo, would be an ambitious story to tackle for any director, but especially one who has never sat in the director’s chair before. The ”Barbie” cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, known mainly for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese and Alejandro González Iñárritu, easily proves here in his first feature that he has a director’s eye for storytelling. With a screenplay by Mateo Gil, “Pedro Páramo” is a journey into the soul as one man discovers his family history. While the Netflix contender for International Feature can often feel overstuffed and disjointed, staying faithful to the nonlinear structure of the source material, one can’t help but get lost in the beauty of its magical realism.
Juan Preciado (Tenoch Huerta) is on a journey to find his father, Pedro Páramo (Manuel García-Rulfo). Traveling to his mother’s hometown of Comala, he promised her on her deathbed that he’d learn the sinful story of the man he never knew. His mother said that she’d be closer to him in the place where she grew up, but instead, he feels like he has been led astray, arriving in an abandoned town. However, he soon finds out that Comala is full of ghosts, literally.
The story begins from Juan’s perspective, but as he encounters many spectral characters, seeing and hearing voices and events of the past, the narration turns to third-person, as the town’s old inhabitants bring clarity to Juan’s family history and recount the story of his father, Pedro. Both perspectives allow the audience to see Comala in different lights, one that is nothing but dust and another vibrant and bursting with life.
The film, ultimately, turns into a meditation on life and death. This story about people and their sins captures both the then and now of Comala to provide an incredibly detailed look at this location and its inhabitants. With Prieto’s prowess as a cinematographer, it’s no surprise how beautifully shot this film is. Along with the help of Nico Aguilar, each scene is stunning. From wide shots of the landscape in desolation to black and white images of a woman lying in the sand to the image of souls filling the sky, hands touching like a work of Michelangelo, you are completely transported into this literary epic as Juan wrestles with the spirits of his history. The score invokes memories being reminisced, and the production design brings so much life to a town that will later forget what that is.
”Pedro Páramo” can often feel weighed down by its own story, as its runtime is too little to begin to capture its full scope. Additionally, if unfamiliar with the source material, many may feel turned off by its nonlinear plot. Nevertheless, the film is a captivating story about the otherworld and those trapped in it, evoking the feeling of being trapped by our own pasts and the pasts that came before.
