Pedro Paramo (2024) Directed by Rodrigo Prieto
4B
Pedro Paramo is based on a highly influential Mexican novel of the same name. What makes the novel important is that it introduced the style of magic realism to fiction and influenced Nobel Prize winning Columbian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez (
One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera; Of Love and Other Demons) who took the form to majestic heights. Fulfilling a promise he made to his mother on her deathbed, Juan attempts to find his father, Pedro Paramo, in a remote deserted village that he finds is populated totally by ghosts. It is through these different figures that he learns the extent to which his father was a brutal tyrant. The movie incorporates his strange journey through the village with flashbacks that show us Pedro's story.
So here's the rub. While the story sounds interesting, the way that first-time director Rodrigo Prieto (Martin Scorsese's current cinematographer) presents it is dull and boring. I was tempted to turn the thing off. There was just a bare minimum of scenes and visual touches that enabled me to continue watching. Part of the problem is that Prieto doesn't always know how to frame a scene, but a bigger problem is that there is nothing magical about the realism on display whatsoever. We just slog along, Prieto telling the story devoid of any emotional resonance or dramatic interest. If I learned that
Pedro Paramo had been directed by an AI, it wouldn't have surprised me in the least.
Netflix
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