TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. In 1955, Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo published a slim novel called "Pedro Páramo" about a man who goes in search of the father he'd never met, only to discover that his father is dead and the village he inhabited is haunted by ghosts. "Pedro Páramo" changed the course of Latin American literature. Among the writers it influenced was a young magical realist by the name of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who went on to write "100 Years Of Solitude" and who once declared that Rulfo was as enduring as Sophocles. Today, a new movie inspired by the novel premieres on Netflix. Contributor Carolina Miranda had a look to see how this cinematic interpretation holds up against Rulfo's timeless book.
CAROLINA MIRANDA, BYLINE: "Pedro Páramo" is not the sort of novel that's easy to turn into a movie. The plot, what there is of it, meanders constantly. Perspectives shift. The narrative jumps back and forth in time. Strange things happen. And as you sink into the story, it can be impossible to tell what's waking life and what might be a dream. The novel is also hard to make into a movie because it's iconic. Practically every school kid in Mexico reads it, and every student of Latin American literature has wrestled with its ruminations on betrayal, power and death.
Rodrigo Prieto, an Oscar-nominated cinematographer from Mexico whose past projects include "Killers Of The Flower Moon," has bravely chosen "Pedro Páramo" as the subject of his first feature film. The story kicks off as Juan Preciado arrives in the village of Comala to look for his father, a prominent landowner. In the film's opening scene, a camera plunges the viewer into a hole in the earth as we hear Preciado deliver the novel's opening lines, lines so famous, many Spanish speakers can recite them by heart.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PEDRO PARAMO")
TENOCH HUERTA: (As Juan, speaking Spanish).
MIRANDA: "I came to Comala," he says, "because I was told my father lived here, a man named Pedro Páramo."
But as Preciado enters Comala, he discovers that the lush settlement his mother had once described no longer exists. The town is abandoned, its crumbling adobe houses occupied by the ghosts of his father's ruthless past. In the role of Preciado is Tenoch Huerta, best known for playing the ocean-dwelling Namor in the "Black Panther" sequel, "Wakanda Forever." His performance in "Pedro Páramo" is far more restrained.
As his character is led by one ghost and then another, ever deeper into Comala, Preciado learns about his father's casual brutality, as well as the other children he'd fathered and even loved. The actor conveys these painful discoveries and flashes of quiet hurt and bewilderment. As in the novel, about midway through the film, the narrative shifts its primary focus from son to father, charting Páramo's rise as a landowner during the years of the Mexican Revolution. Páramo murders his adversaries and takes their land. He treats the town's women like a personal harem. He knows he can disobey the law because in this corner of Mexico he is the law.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PEDRO PARAMO")
MANUEL GARCIA-RULFO: (As Pedro, speaking Spanish).
MIRANDA: "What laws?" he asks. "We'll make the laws ourselves."
Starring as Páramo is Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, a Mexican actor known for playing the title role on the Netflix series "The Lincoln Lawyer." Born in Guadalajara, Garcia-Rulfo also happens to be a distant relative of the book's author. And to the character, he brings the spoken cadences of western Mexico where the novel is set. But the actor's approachable good looks don't always jibe with the merciless rancher described in the book.
The bigger challenge facing any director who tackles "Pedro Páramo" is constructing a believable world. To read the novel is to get the sensation that you are being told a story by ghosts, as if you're hearing voices fade in and out. The author conveys these strange and terrible events in matter-of-fact ways. He doesn't sensationalize or overdo the suspense. Capturing the sensibility on film, however, can be difficult, and it's why it's been a challenge to translate "Pedro Páramo," as well as other novels by magical realists, into movie form. The literature has a very restrained approach to the extraordinary. On screen, however, things like violence can come off as lurid and apparitions can feel hokey.
Prieto's film, for the most part, presents a convincing world. His transitions between past and present and life and death are seamless. Bleak scenes are portrayed with otherworldly beauty. And sound, which Rulfo describes with great care in the novel, is used in interesting ways. At one moment, we hear the world through the partially deaf ears of an old mule driver. In another, we're immersed in the echoes of Comala's empty streets.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PEDRO PARAMO")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (Shouting in Spanish).
MIRANDA: The movie, however, has its awkward moments. A scene that involves a woman who turns into mud feels like an intrusion of CGI in early 20th century Mexico. And the same goes for a key death scene, of which I won't say more so as not to give away plot. Prieto's film is one of several inspired by Rulfo's novel - a version from 1967 was more melodramatic, another released in 1977 had a stripped-down spaghetti Western vibe. Prieto's version adheres most closely to Rulfo's text, and that can hamper the film's pacing. The frequent jumps between time periods which give the book its sense of disorientation become repetitive and extra confusing on screen. Though, ultimately, being confused is part of grappling with Juan Rulfo's master work, a story about love, corruption, dominance and the ways in which death comes for us all in the end.
GROSS: Culture critic Carolina Miranda reviewed the film "Pedro Páramo." It started streaming today on Netflix.
Tomorrow on FRESH AIR - after the Civil War, tens of thousands of formerly enslaved people deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, a bank created for them. But they lost their savings when the bank collapsed in 1874. Our guest will be Justene Hill Edwards, author of a new book about the bank and how it contributed to racial economic disparities. I hope you'll join us.
Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
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