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“Pedro Paramo,” based on the 1955 novel by Juan Rulfo, premieres Wednesday, Nov. 6, on Netflix, starring Tenoch Huerta and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo.
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Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ilse Salas, Director Rodrigo Prieto, Tenoch Huerta and Dolores Heredia from “Pedro Paramo”
Cover Story Mexican film on an epic scale: Garcia-Rulfo, Huerta star in ‘Pedro Paramo’ By Dana Simpson 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, colorful tapestries and a rich culture devoted to honoring the dead. While many non-Mexicans may have been introduced to its culture through American films such as “Coco” (2017) and “The Mask of Zorro” (1998) or the artsy biographical drama “Frida” (2002), Mexico has its own vibrant cinema history, which was celebrated by Netflix with a news release announcing “Pedro Paramo” this past August. To be released just four days after Mexico’s Day of the Dead observances, “Pedro Paramo” sets the tone for the country’s next holiday: Revolution Day. At once a stunning visual feast and an epic tale of one man’s complicated family history, “Pedro Paramo” premieres Wednesday, Nov. 6, on Netflix. Based on the 1955 novel of the same name by late
Mexican author Juan Rulfo, “Pedro Paramo” follows the titular character’s son, Juan Preciado (Tenoch Huerta, “The Forever Purge,” 2021), 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,” 2001), “Pedro Paramo” is the first feature directed by four-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (“Brokeback Moun-
tain,” 2005). The 133-minute, Spanish-language film made its official debut at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where it was described as “a mesmerizing story of desire, corruption and inheritance.” Starring “The Lincoln Lawyer’s” Manuel Garcia-Rulfo in the film’s titular role, “Pedro Paramo” also stars Mayra Batalla (“Huesera: The Bone Woman,” 2022), Ilse Salas (“The Good Girls,” 2018), Hector Kotsifakis (“The Inmate”), Giovanna Zacarias (“On the Road,” 2012), Ari Brickman (“Crime Diaries: The Candidate”), Gabriela Nunez (“Prayers for the Stolen,” 2021), Dolores Heredia (“Vantage Point,” 2008) and Noé Hernandez (“La Reina del Sur”). In the official TIFF description of Netflix’s newest film, 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’s TIFF synopsis continues. “De-
serted 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 Paramo’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 Paramo” align well with the Latin-American literary tradition of magical realism, popularized by late “Love in the Time of Cholera” author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who held the novel’s author, Rulfo, in high esteem as one of his inspirations. By blending the worlds of the living and the dead and pairing that unique genre of spiritualism with reflections on memory, legacy and parentage, Rulfo — and filmmaker Prieto by extension — speak to many values at the core of Mexican culture.
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