Many films use the imaginative nature of cinema to blur the lines between life and the afterlife, but just a select number of them do it in ways that feel innovative and intriguing. Pedro Páramo uses its supernatural language to inform the audience of the consequences of a collective wrongdoing. It is also remarkably efficient at communicating different storylines to the audience without making viewers get lost in the process.

Based on a 1955 novel by author Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo tells the story of Juan Preciado (played by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s Tenoch Huerta Mejía), a man who goes to a deserted town to find his long-lost father. What starts as a simple search quickly transforms into a supernatural journey in which past, present, and future are contemplated for Juan to understand his own predicament and his father’s.

‘Pedro Páramo’ Manages Its Multiple Timelines Well

The first great win of Pedro Páramo is to be able to juggle three different timelines and a limbo-like setting and never confuse viewers. In order to do that, director and four-time Oscar nominee Rodrigo Prieto (in his feature film directorial debut) chooses an approach that trusts viewers completely to be able to tell at which segment in time the events are playing out. It’s easy to see why so many filmmakers resort to changing the color palette to make the different timelines instantly recognizable, but Prieto trusts so much that his audience will be able to keep up with the story that the only obvious elements that inform the audience of the passage of time are the use of makeup and younger versions of characters in certain moments.

Prieto is also clever at slowly making viewers get used to the limbo/afterlife setting of the movie by introducing new elements little by little. So, this particular segment gradually feels like a genre-bending adventure that plays with Western, drama, and horror elements. This is also — for obvious reasons — the segment in which the cinematography changes the most, and the one that makes it absolutely clear Prieto has mastered his craft. He’s the go-to cinematographer of Martin Scorsese, and this time around he shared cinematography duties with Nico Aguilar, who also worked with him in Killers of the Flower Moon.

‘Pedro Páramo’s Cinematography Helps Tell Its Story
Image via Netflix

The cinematography of Pedro Páramo makes it clear that a life of evil and vile decisions made by the men in the nameless Mexican village of the movie made it a horrible place to get tethered to in the afterlife. It’s also a good narrative decision to start Pedro Páramo through Juan’s POV, because it makes us as confused as he is regarding his whereabouts and, just like it happens to him, it takes us a while to catch up to where the man might be.

The script by Mateo Gil (Abre Los Ojos) is also clever in transforming its title character into a Wizard of Oz-like figure that comes so relatively late into the movie that you start to believe that he’s not going to be a character at all. When he does show up, however, you can understand why his presence becomes the stuff of legend. With the ruthless demeanor of a man who never second-guesses his actions (played with confidence by The Lincoln Lawyer’s Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Páramo is the product of a town that is cruel to anyone who inhabits it.

Páramo, along with Padre Renteria (Roberto Sosa), underscores a theme that is not exclusive to Pedro Páramo: the way that people in positions of power within religious institutions get to pick and choose what deeds they’ll do while claiming that God is speaking through them. Needless to say, this leads some religious leaders to commit some of the biggest atrocities that humanity’s ever seen, and in Pedro Páramo this translates to a priest who “decides” who goes to heaven while turning a blind eye to the problems of the community he has the moral duty of helping.

‘Pedro Páramo’ Knows Its Characters — The Audience Not So Much
Image via Netflix

It’s also not lost on Pedro Páramo how women tend to get the shorter end of the stick in every scenario. At one point, Pedro decides he’ll marry a young woman he’s never met the next day, and the woman is expected to accept and make arrangements in record time — regardless of how she feels about him. It’s just a tiny example of how the women of Pedro Páramo are treated, but the movie does make the mistake of never giving them a true and powerful voice. Throughout the whole story, we get the feeling that characters like Damiana (Mayra Batalla), Dorotea (Giovanna Zacarías), and Dolores (Ishbel Bautista) are seen through the lens of the men of the story, and we never really get to know them or see it all through their eyes.

Despite all of its qualities, Pedro Páramosometimes gets its pacing a little wrong. For a movie that travels so much from one point to another in the story, it can feel surprisingly stale at times, especially when viewers are trying to keep track of who’s who in the story, where they end up, and who they become. It’s almost like all the effort that was put into not confusing the audience about its timelines wasn’t also applied to help us navigate the myriad of characters present in the story.

Pedro Páramo is more than a worthy first feature of a cinematographer who helped bring to life industry juggernauts like Barbie, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Brokeback Mountain. It shows that aside from being a master cinematographer, Prieto is also a skilled storyteller whose work makes us eager to check out whatever comes next for him.

‘Pedro Páramo’ is a solid directing debut for Rodrigo Prieto that cleverly handles its storylines.ProsThe movie knows how to handle several timelines without getting confusing.The cinematography helps tell the story.Makes a powerful critique of religious leaders and misogyny. ConsThe rhythm at times gets a little too slow.Female chaarcters never get their own voice.

Pedro Páramo, directed by Rodrigo Prieto, follows Juan Preciado as he fulfills his mother’s dying wish to meet his father in the town of Comala. Upon arrival, he discovers Comala is inhabited by spectral characters, revealing its ghostly nature.Release Date November 6, 2024 Cast Manuel Garcia-Rulfo , Tenoch Huerta Mejía , Dolores Heredia , Ilse Salas , Hector Kotsifakis , Mayra Batalla , Roberto Sosa , Giovanna Zacarías , Noé Hernández , Yoshira Escárrega , Santiago Colores , Gilberto Barraza , Ari Brickman , Horacio Garcia Rojas , Sarah Rovira , Gabriela Núñez , Ishbel Bautista , Ana Celeste , Irineo Alvarez , Sebastián García , Mayra Hermosillo , Julieta Egurrola , Fernanda Rivera , Mariel , Doris Olimpia Araujo Delgado , Osvaldo Sánchez , Luis Rosete , Lorena Valdés , Jessica Toledo , Albida Villanueva , Martín Rodríguez Cañas , José Concepción Macías , Conrado Mercado , Jesús Sida , Lorenzo Jacome , Carlos Balderrama , Tulio Villavicencio , Paco Peralta , Guillermo Nava , Eduardo Humaran , Waldo Facco Runtime 130 Minutes Expand

Pedro Páramo is now available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

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