By Steve Erickson

Pepe is an immense achievement: one of the most formally and politically radical narrative films to turn up on the international festival circuit in 2024.

Pepe, directed by Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias. At the 2024 New York Film Festival, screening on October 5, 6, and 9.

A scene from the astounding Pepe. Photo: Berlin Film Festival

Pepe sounds like a Netflix docuseries: a chronicle of the stranger-than-fiction fate of a hippo once owned by Pablo Escobar. Thankfully, Dominican director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias’ approach is infinitely more adventurous. This is an immense achievement: one of the most formally and politically radical narrative films to turn up on the international festival circuit in 2024. De Los Santos Arias uses the trials and tribulations of Pepe — granted the power of speech in a voice-over delivered in several languages — as an illustration of colonialism. The hippo’s parents were stolen from Namibia and brought to the Americas. But Pepe also works at face value as an exploration of animal rights. It delves into the consciousness of beasts — and the danger of humans misunderstanding it.

The very first shot of Pepe is a white frame. Visually, the only variation we see comes from damage to the film stock; the sound of a helicopter pilot calling out to a Corporal Gonzales intrudes upon the image’s blankness. Then, the hippo introduces himself. Named Pepe, he’s confused that he has been resurrected as a ghost. Caged in Pablo Escobar’s private zoo in his Hacienda Napoles estate, he escaped to the surrounding river (as did most of the other animals) following the drug lord’s 1993 death. What follows is not a straightforward, linear narrative, but a story that takes vast leaps in time and space. A group of German tourists are seen on safari in Namibia. The director De Los follows people and animals down the Magdalena river for brief intervals, moving on to another one after a few minutes. Rejected by Escobar’s menagerie, Pepe is forced to live on his own. One section details the rocky relationship of fisherman Candelario (Jorge Puntillon Garcia), who encounters the hippo while working, and his wife Bethania (Sor Maria Rios). These scenes are the ones where Pepe comes closest to conventional characters and storytelling, but they make up a small portion of the film.

De Los Santos Arias’ style is accomplished and eclectic,to say the least. He’s fond of stationary long shots. Often, the camera position, floated in a river, suggests a hippo-eyed-view, looking quizzically at people. Drones are used for distant, overhead views. On the one hand, the cinematography can be breathtakingly pretty,but Pepe never lets one forget the animal’s feelings of loss –and the military squad that is out to kill him. The calm of an aerial shot of Escobar’s mansion and its surrounding streets, as we watch cars slowly pass, is broken by pilots’ chatter. De Los Santos Arias lets these images play out, moving the camera further back, till he cuts to white. The film’s view of nature leans towards ‘objective’ abstraction; lush shots of the river are stripped of narrative intent. Genuine documentary footage is integrated with staged scenes.

Along with its fascinating visuals, Pepe is a film about language. The hippo speaks to us as a ghost, unable to understand his ability to talk. (Four actors, each speaking a different tongue, represent his voice.) I’ve often wondered: what do animals make of the symbolic value humans place on them? Could they understand it? Would goats be baffled by their association with witchcraft and the devil? Pepe muses on these and other issues. At one point, he gazes at his own representation: he glimpses a cartoon about his life that is being shown playing on a living room TV.

Does all that sound like it could be overly didactic? Pepe might have gone that way. A few scenes are close to being lectures in post-colonial theory. The film works so well because it focuses on the threatening drama of the present moment. Pepe speaks about his own experience and the way he’s perceived: “in their story, I became a monster, an Other that scared everyone.” Brought to the Americas, he’s seen as important only insofar as his story intersects with that of humans (especially one as infamous as Pablo Escobar.) In the end, he’s perceived as a danger, with has some basis in fact, given that his presence endangered local fishermen. Pepe is never seen as a being with a life that matters for its own sake.

Pepe has yet to be acquired by a U.S. distributor. (De Los Santos Arias’ previous film, Cocote, did receive a brief release here in 2018.) American audiences will encounter difficulties with this film: they’ve grown wary of subtitles, let alone the degree of experimentation Pepe embraces with a vengeance. But grappling with its eccentricities  is well worth the effort. De Los Santos Arias described his earlier feature, 2015’s Santa Teresa & Historias, as “an anarchic rebellion of multiple narratives, colors and formats…in a drive towards permanent revolution.” Pepe continues that fierce critical critique with a rare combo of formal beauty and political astuteness.

Steve Erickson writes about film and music for Gay City News, Slant Magazine, the Nashville Scene, Trouser Press, and other outlets. He also produces electronic music under the tag callinamagician. His latest album, Bells and Whistles, was released in January 2024, and is available to stream here.