Pedro Páramo is a Mexican movie on an epic scale
Anyone who has ever visited Mexico (or watched a travel show set in the country) already knows that it is an ancient and dynamic land teeming with good food, colourful tapestries and a rich culture devoted to honouring the dead. Mexico also has its own vibrant cinema history, which was celebrated by Netflix with a news release announcing the debut of Pedro Páramo.
Making its Netflix debut days after Mexico’s Day of the Dead observances, Pedro Páramo sets the tone for the country’s next holiday: Revolution Day, offering viewers a stunning visual feast and an epic tale of one man’s complicated family history.
Based on the 1955 novel of the same name by late Mexican author Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo follows the titular character’s son, Juan Preciado (Tenoch Huerta) as he promises his dying mother that he will return to Comala, the town where he was born, to find the father he never knew. Along the way, he discovers that the remote town is not the prosperous hub he had been led to believe it was, but rather a ghost town in every sense of the word.
Driven on his quest by a desire to fill in the missing pieces of his family history, Juan encounters all manner of people — some living, others long dead — who help him to understand the nuances of the hope (and the lack thereof) attached to family values, complicated blood ties and personal goals.
Adapted from the source material by writer Mateo Gil (Vanilla Sky), Pedro Páramo is the first feature directed by four-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Brokeback Mountain). Making its premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, the film was described as “a mesmerizing story of desire, corruption and inheritance.”
With The Lincoln Lawyer’s Manuel Garcia-Rulfo cast in the titular role, Pedro Páramo also stars Mayra Batalla, Ilse Salas, Hector Kotsifakis, Giovanna Zacarias, Ari Brickman, Gabriela Núñez, Dolores Heredia and Noé Hernández.
In the official TIFF description of the movie, Colombian-Canadian festival programmer Diana Cadavid writes that “in Comala, nothing is as it seems. Juan speaks with someone, only to be informed that person has died.”
Cadavid continues, writing, “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 themes and questions at the heart of Pedro Páramo align well with the Latin-American literary tradition of magical realism. By blending the worlds of the living and the dead while pairing that unique genre of spiritualism with reflections on memory, legacy and parentage, the film speaks to many values at the core of Mexican culture.
“The recognition of Mexican cinema and literature within and beyond our borders is unquestionable,” stated Francisco Ramos, vice president of Latin American content for Netflix. “Their quality and transcendence resonate because they define us just as we are . . . Almost 70 years after its publication, Pedro Páramo remains one of the fundamental pillars of our literature, a seminal work of universal transcendence.”
Added Ramos: “We made the decision to undertake the film adaptation of Pedro Páramo with the utmost respect, rigour and commitment.”
Pedro Páramo, streaming on Netflix