Bless Me, Ultima

2013
6.4| 1h46m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 22 February 2013 Released
Producted By: Monarch Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.blessmeultima.com/
Synopsis

In a village in New Mexico, the life of young farm boy Antonio is dramatically changed when an old medicine woman joins his household. This affecting coming-of-age tale recounts Antonio's experiences to reveal the spiritual conflict in his community.

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Reviews

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.
ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
Krabs is a _____ Rudolfo Anaya's novel, Bless Me, Ultima, incorporated many interpretative scene left to the minds of the readers. The film version of the book, directed by Carl Franklin, attempted to bring the scenes to life, and portray Anaya's visions of the book. Throughout his film, Franklin utilized diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, in addition to camera placements to represent certain emotions or certain character-related symbols. The cogitated uses of sound are extraordinary, and work wonders for the film, as he combines non-diegetic sounds with diegetic sounds to give a deeper meaning. All non-diegetic sounds, such as the soundtrack, are gently placed into the film, and are gradual in volume and emotion. The diegetic sounds are placed smoothly in the background to emphasize aspects, namely the symbol of the river and the land. As we follow Antonio, the main character, on his coming-of-age journey, we are delightfully overcome with the sense of adventure due to the sounds played. In addition to the sounds, Franklin uses wonderfully placed camera angles that place the viewer in with the characters, and affect us as emotionally as it does with the protagonists. Many times through the film, we are looking from over Antonio's shoulder, looking up at someone. This is significant with the coming-of-age aspect to the film, and even more so towards the end when Antonio finds himself. He becomes something more to everyone around him, and his new found strength places his shots above others. While this film had noteworthy scenes, I was a bit surprised at it's disobedience toward the novel. I feel there were many important scenes in the book that were significant to Antonio's struggles, as well as his aging process. Things like the Golden Carp were too big to leave out it seemed, though Franklin found a way. Otherwise, the film was enjoyable. --Jared M--
Mariz Flores In this 2013 film, "Bless Me, Ultima",(Directed and Screen played by Carl Franklin and based on the novel by Rudolfo Anaya) displays a spiritual and generally hardworking town of old time agricultural Chicano people living in New Mexico during WW2. The film focuses on the protagonist, Antonio, who's curiosity places him in difficult and mature situations inside and outside of his home. The character whom had the opportunity to play Antonio contained a significant amount of innocence in which stripped the movie from a major memorable aspect. Antonio's character in the novel had questionable innocence due to what he has seen and how his curiosity puts him in dangerous situations where as in the film his ability to seek something potentially helpful to his learning process pushed him more towards innocence due to his looks and approach towards obstacles. In one of the first dangerous scenes in the film in which Lupito was killed, Antonio was in the grass hiding to watch what was happening on the bridge and the director uses a a medium long shot to show Antonio in the grass to make him appear small and innocent and the purpose of this scene was to show a small piece of his innocence being stripped but actually the scene made Antonio contain more innocence due to his facial expression and how expressed his feelings in the scene by running away extremely scared. In the film, Antonio continued to be graceful in all his actions and didn't really show his extremely spiritual side in comparison with the novel because the power of good rarely appeared in connection with Antonio in the novel. I know that the movie cannot be exactly like the book, but the movie lacked certain aspects of the book in which completed the book for example, the golden carp was completely disregarded in the making of the film. The golden carp is what made Antonio seem to slowly seem less innocent because he began to believe in many different spiritual theories. If the movie contained a loss of innocence and a widened since of religion, this would make the movie more interesting and meaningful.
Connor Grimes In Carl Franklin's depiction of Rudolfo Anaya's critically acclaimed novel Bless Me, Ultima, Franklin uses some techniques to convey the theme of nature. Although Franklin effectively uses a lot of techniques in the film, it is very overwhelming and distracts the audience from the story. Franklin's film follows a young boy Antonio and his journey through childhood, he is split between understanding what to believe. In contrast to the book, Franklin did not choose to focus on Antonio's choices between which family he should follow. Franklin chose to give the focus to Antonio and his connection to Ultima and nature. He effectively uses transition and scale techniques to illustrate the connection between Antonio with Ultima. For example, the first time you see Ultima and Antonio together there is a burn in and out transition between the two as they give gracious glares to each other. Franklin gives the introduction between them like they were mother and son, almost as they knew everything about each other already. Also as Antonio is guided by Ultima through childhood, many scenes have Antonio walking away with an owl looking over. The owl is representing Ultima watching over Antonio as he leaves home. Franklin lets the audience feel the guidance of Ultima over Antonio throughout the movie thoroughly. Franklin used some different techniques as he tried to also illustrates Antonio's connection to nature. Using techniques like the diegetic sound and foreground shots made the feeling of nature overwhelming in important scenes. For example, as the people of the town are ready to blow away Lupito, Antonio watches. Franklin puts him in the foreground of the scene putting the river and bushes more in focus. It intentionally pulls the attention of the viewers seeing Antonio witnessing a death to a scene of a man dieing. The audience doesn't feel the full effect of the event has on Antonio. The attention is also pulled away from Antonio witnessing a death when Narciso is killed. Franklin films this scene through a heavy rainstorm, using nature again to distract the audience. Franklin was able to effectively use techniques to convey certain themes to the audience, but a lot of the techniques were useless and distracting to the interpreted themes of the movie.
Aven G Both the movie and the book for Bless Me, Ultima have very intense scenes. The lessons they teach are very relatable. They question elements of morality and social prejudice that really allow you to think deeply about actual life. The movie gets the upper hand in that the music played really intensifies the mood and allows you to feel the emotion behind every single scene that the book is unable to do. The book however is very good as well. Since you actually get to read what is going on, I feel like you can really get a better and deeper understanding of Antonio's thoughts. Reading his narration throughout the whole book allows a reader to get to know him on a very personal level. I felt like I knew Antonio more from reading his thoughts in the book than watching him in the movie. The movie does leave out certain aspects of the book that I feel were very important but nonetheless it did not add any nonsense and followed the storyline pretty well in my opinion.

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