Pedro Páramo

Famed Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto has made his feature debut, adapting ‘Pedro Páramo’, a story that influenced Gabriel García Márquez and Magical Realism.

I have a hard time keeping track of characters in Magical Realist stories, and the film was no exception — in its fidelity to the source material, it left me lost and my brain working overtime to keep track of the story. I think this will be a film most people enjoy, but they will need to google afterwards to understand the order and logic of events fully.

For his part, Prieto and Nico Aguilar on Cinematography do a brilliant and unpretentious job, while set design and costumes build the world out with great and beautiful detail. Perhaps because of this lack of pretentiousness, any distinction in time and space was hard to track, and so the story and style surely opens up more for those who already know the material.