Netflix film “Pedro Páramo”, which was released a few weeks ago, is often terrific to watch for its undeniably haunting visual moments, but it is also frequently frustrating in terms of story and character. While its period background looks impeccable with mood and details to be cherished, the movie also sometimes feels quite confusing in its non-linear narrative structure without a strong emotional center to hold our attention, and we only come to observe its story and characters from the distance without much care.

The story begins with a man who is about to arrive at the destination of his long journey across some barren rural area of Mexico during the early 20th century. He is Juan Preciado (Tenoch Huerta, whom you may remember for his substantial supporting part in Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (2022)), and he is going to some local village for seeing his father. While he does not remember much of his father, he goes there just because of his mother requested that right before her recent death, and he is only told later that his father already died some years ago.

Anyway, Juan finds that the village is pretty empty and barren now without much sign of life. Not long after his arrival, he is welcomed by someone closely associated with his and his mother’s past in the village, and the mood gets lightened up a bit as they have some casual conversation between them during the following evening, but we slowly come to gather that this supposedly welcoming figure may be one of those ghosts still wandering around inside the village. 

While Juan naturally becomes more and more unsure about what is real or not, the story frequently doles out a series of flashback moments from the past involved with Juan’s father, who is named, yes, Pedro Páramo (Manuel García Rulfo). Páramo was born to a wealthy family who owned a big ranch near the village, but then his family found themselves on the verge of bankruptcy when Páramo took over the family business shortly after his father’s death, and that is how he became quite ruthless for maintaining his and his family’s social status. For example, he seduced a young wealthy lady mainly for her money, and then he cruelly ignored her once he succeeded in getting what he wanted from her.

And we get to know about how much others around him suffered his cruelty and heartlessness in one way or another. In case of the Catholic priest of the village, he surely despised Páramo more as learning more about how Páramo mistreated one woman after another without much hesitation, but there was nothing he could do except showing a sign of protest in front of Páramo and others from time to time. In case of one maid who somehow came to stand by her master to the end, she surely saw and heard a lot during all those years, and she is willing to tell much to Juan when they come across each other later in the story.

It also turns out that Páramo had a rather soft spot behind all those heartless behaviors of his. There was a certain young girl who happened to leave the village not long after she and young Páramo became more aware of their mutual feeling, and he seems to get softened a bit when she unexpected returned and then get married to him. However, she had already been sick in her body and mind, and there is a bitter irony in how that came to break her husband’s heart and spirit in the end.  

The screenplay by Mateo Gil, which is based on the famous novel of the same named by Juan Rulfo, attempts to give us an epic picture of human suffering and sadness surrounding the titular hero, but it unfortunately fails to bring enough life and personality to many of its main characters. While Juan remains a rather blank counterpoint to many other characters who come and go along the narrative, we never get to know that much about what makes Páramo tick, and many of the other main characters in the story are more or less than broad archetypes on the whole, though the main cast members of the movie try as much as possible for filling their respective parts. 

At least, the movie does not feel deficient at all in case of its technical aspects thanks to director Rodrigo Prieto, who has been known well for his considerable contribution to numerous acclaimed films ranging from Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” (2005) to Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” (2023). With his co-cinematographer Nico Aguilar, Prieto serves us a bunch of visually impressive moments which often evoke magic realism on the screen (It is no wonder that Rulfo’s novel influenced many works of Gabriel García Márquez a lot, by the way), and I particularly like a phantasmagoric scene where Juan happens to behold a lot of ghostly figures swirling up together up in the sky in the middle of one night.

In conclusion, “Pedro Páramo” is fairly interesting to watch for its first-rate technical qualities including the sparse but effective score by Gustavo Santaolalla, and Prieto made a mostly admirable directorial debut here in this movie. However, it sadly failed to engage me on the emotional level, and my mind kept going somewhere more than once despite trying to have more patience during my viewing. At least, I became quite interested in checking out Rulfo’s novel sooner or later, and that is surely something positive about watching this rather dissatisfying work.