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In October 2018, I was with my father in Hollywood to go to the Animation is Film Festival. I was a fan when I sat down and watched the first film in the lineup that was Mamoru Hosoda’s Mirai. It was a fantastic experience, and I can’t wait to go back this year for the next festival. On the second day, my dad and I were going to go do different things that day. I decided to go see a film that wasn’t on my list of films to see at the festival, but I decided to check it out, Pachamama! Directed by Juan Antin, Pachamama was the first film shown off on the second day of the festival, and while the crowd for it wasn’t huge, it was still another feather in the cap of the overall event. Recently, Netflix decided to bring it onto their service as one of their exclusives, but outside of one trailer and a snippet of the film being shown off in the promotional video for July 2019, no one knows about this movie.
The story revolves around a young boy named Tepulpai, voiced by Andrea Santamaria. He lives in a small village where he dreams to become the village Shaman, but is too selfish and inconsiderate to be one yet. In his village, they worship the mighty earth goddess Pachamama and have a festival in her honor. Unfortunately, a follower of the Golden City, where the lord of the land lives, arrived during their festivities and decides to take the village’s most prized possession. It is up to Tepulpai and his friend Naira, voiced by India Coenen, to get the village’s possession back, and also avoid the grasps of an evil outside force.
So, this is going to sound harsh, but Pachamama is a very simple film. It’s obvious that it’s aimed at a younger audience, and there is nothing super deep about it like in a Pixar, or the rare DreamWorks film. And you know what? That’s perfectly okay! Not every film needs to be seen or approached to as wide of an audience as possible. Sometimes, it’s good to find an audience you want to focus on, and make the best product as possible for that group. Pachamama is an easy-going low-key adventure that relies on charm and its unique visual look to get you through the story. Sure, it does get a touch dark in tone and is not apologize about who the villains are in the film, but you can still watch it, and kids can understand and get an early preview about some rather terrible points in history. Its themes focus on not being selfish, becoming brave, and is very anti-greed. It’s a deep enough film that doesn’t dissolve into mindless colors and noise. It has a story, it’s for a young audience, it has likable characters, and it’s executed pretty well. I would rather a film be executed in this fashion, than what we got with that HELLS film from last year.
Now, where Pachamama really shines are in its visuals. While it was originally going to be a stop-motion film, I think the overall visual style works better in CGI. It has beautiful and vibrant colors, the character designs work in CGI, and every background shot reminds me of paintings and posters of Argentinian and South American culture. It can truly stand out among the animated films made with CGI, with its children’s book/fairy tale look and unique human designs. While you can tell that this was a film with a limited budget, you can also tell that they took full advantage of what they could do, and the end product is still a visually splendid affair that makes it stand out among not only the foreign animated features, but also the Netflix-exclusive animated features.
If I had to pick a few things to criticize, one of them would be about some of the English voice work. It’s not terrible, but at certain points in the film, the two actors playing the leads sound flat. The script is also fairly basic. You won’t see much deeper themes or concepts within the script, because of how this was mainly made for a younger audience. It’s very straight forward, and while I personally don’t mind that, I can see it being a bit too safe for other people. The main villains are also not that interesting. They are meant to be this faceless group of Spanish explorers, but that’s about it. They fit the theme of these new “gods” arriving on their land, but don’t expect a complex villain from the head of the explorers.
While this was not my favorite film from the festival, I did find myself enjoying the charm, the animation, the gorgeous artwork, and my experience with Pachamama. You really have no excuse to not see this film, because it’s on Netflix. I know some people might want something more artistic, complex, and challenging in their animation, but sometimes, you want a film that knows what it is, and knows how to do it well. Like I said, it’s on Netflix right now, and I would highly recommend checking it out! Now then, I don’t really know what we are going to do for the 160th review. Maybe it’s time to go into some uncharted territory! Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time!
Rating: Go See It!
The Other Side of Animation 