Pepe review: Requiem for the fallen hippo

Pepe
(Dominican Republic/Namibia/Germany/France, 122 min.)
Dir. Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias
Program: Wavelengths (North American premiere)

Inspiration often comes from the most unlikely places. For Dominican Republic filmmaker Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, a visit to Colombia was his creative breakthrough. During his trip, he decided to meet up with his former classmate and friend, filmmaker Camilo Restrepo. When he entered Restrepo's living room, he found a strange diorama: a group of green soldiers standing around a hippopotamus figure. Confused by the makeshift installation, de los Santos Arias listened carefully as Restrepo explained his model.

Restrepo told the tragic story of a herd of hippos that were forcibly removed from their African homeland. The senseless act was committed by drug lord Pablo Escobar. After his arrest, a lost hippo named Pepe was chased away and later banished from his herd. The hippo chaos story made the rounds in the local media, inevitably leading to the killing of the endangered animal. De los Santos Arias saw similarities in Restrepo's informal narrative to other post-colonial narratives. His curiosity, sparked by the plastic figures, gave rise to a timeless story about colonialism.

In de los Santos Arias' award-winning hippo epic Pepeis a story about power and ecological colonization. Through his radical direction, de los Santos Arias forces the viewer to put themselves in the shoes of the eponymous hippo. The deep and threatening voices that incorporate the anthropomorphized narrative of the hippo cast reinforce Pepe's elliptical vision. Actors Jhon Narváez, Matjila Fareed, Harmony Ahalwa and Shifafure Faustinus voice the film's protagonist in three different languages. Pepe's voice is embodied through dialogues in Spanish, Afrikaans and Mbukushu, as the film begins with an indigenous dialect. The different linguistic backgrounds represent the colonized nationalities of the sentient protagonist.

The provocative narrative is accompanied by an insatiable pastiche. The film switches between Super 16mm film stock, digital RED cameras and night vision surveillance footage, the wide range of formats and aspect ratios woven into the languid chronology.

The adaptation of a fictional Hanna-Barbera-inspired cartoon also comments on the mythification of the hippo phenomenon. The filmmaker places the fictionalized cartoon program against the backdrop of his familiar conflicts. The inclusion of media demonstrates the duplicity of mass entertainment in the region, while Pepe's innocent face evolves into a distortion of a hidden colonial truth. The expressionist direction embodies the film's themes of connectivity. One form of colonial violence leads to a domino chain of death in de los Santos Arias's narrative. The poetic form reflects the consequences of senseless violence.

The director also cleverly adds documentary elements to his avant-garde production. He uses nature footage of real hippos that currently live on the Magdalena River in Colombia, Pepe beautifully depicts the present-day impact of Escobar's greed through various scenes featuring the wandering animals. In the context of the film, the footage embodies Pepe's lonely final days before his inevitable murder. The stories of the past intermingle with the consequences of the present. By blending real footage with historical fiction, de los Santos Arias respectfully comments on the consequences of Escobar's rule currently impacting the country's environmental sustainability.

De los Santos Arias' experimental work reflects on Colombia's colonial history as an outsider looking inward. The external perspective addresses the subject without becoming overly fixated on precise historical details. Pepe's tragic story is not exclusively confined to Colombian soil. De los Santos Arias wants his audience to think beyond the literalness of his historical retelling. His skillful direction allows the viewer to search for layered meanings within the fluid framework. The film's avant-garde traditions are playfully provocative, testing the boundaries of contemporary cinema to new heights. Pepe is a cinematic achievement that goes beyond its tantalizing premise.

Pepe shown at TIFF 2024.

Further coverage of this year’s festival can be found here.