Bless Me, Ultima (2013)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

In the Book there was a magical feel to it something straight out of a fairy tale, But in this movie Carl Franklin did not capture that at all the locations where great and all and the sound is amazing but that was all that was going for the movie. Each critical moment in the film was backed by some beautiful music to set the mood my Favorite scene was when we first meet Tenorio, Narciso was warning the family about Tenorio and his followers where coming for Ultima because Tenorio thinks Ultima is a Bruja (witch) and killed his daughter with a curse. So at the beginning of the scene Narciso barges in Antonios home with a warning about Tenorio then you can hear an angry mob in the distance then you hear and owl then the music was very worrisome you knew right off the bat something bad was coming and it was coming fast Tony and his father step out into the front yard to confront Tenorio and his followers after a back and forth with Tenorio, Tony and his father are moved aside after Tenorio calls Ultima a Bruja then the owl takes Tenorio's eye. One of a few great scenes in my opinion Over all good book OK movie.

Throughout this film Franklin used many techniques to his advantage like sound and lighting. He used indigenous and tranquil music that really went with many of the major themes in this movie. Like most movies Franklin had the music increase in volume and tempo as the scene became more intense and serious. He did this at a more considerable way because he had the music fading in and out of specific scenes which really makes the movie easier to watch and keep up with what's going on. The music also goes well with the magical scenery of the llano and the lighting was perfect throughout the film weather it was showing a characters emotion or just showing the audience the wide open plains of the llano. Franklin does an excellent job using lighting for every scene because the lighting changes with the mood of what is happening in the story which he is trying to hint at using foreshadow to let the audience kind of figure out what will happen next. When things become grim at certain points of the film usually involving death Franklin purposely makes the lighting change from a lighter background to a darker drearier one. Franklin did an excellent job with this whole movie (technique wise) but personally it wasn't one of my favorites. One thing I did not like at all was the narrator's voice that was supposedly Antonino's. Having that narration gave off the illusion that the narrator was a completely different character in the movie. Comparing the book and movie I think Franklin did a really good job with keeping the events that happened in the book in chronological order and transferring that to the movie. The one major difference I would say would have to be that the book is more about Antonio's decisions and how he is pressured at home to do well and his felling towards god and everything he believes in. We see a bit of that in the movie but nothing like the book but overall Franklin did a decent job using techniques like lighting and sound to bring the book, characters and struggles to life but really lacked on showing the predicaments the Antonio faced.

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.

I like the way that in the book for Bless Me, Ultima they really show dichotomy between Antonio's Mom and Dad. Maria wanting Antonio to follow his Luna blood line and Gabriel wanting him to follow his Marez blood. In the book it really show how much conflict there is in his mind of who he wants to become and what he wants to be. However, in the movie I really liked how they showed how Maria and Gabriel still love each other very much no matter what their differences are. In the book they didn't show the love between Maria and Gabriel as well as in the movie. Watching the movie really helped me imagine what Antonio was going through and his emotions. They did a great job of making this movie and show the conflicts in Antonio's life when he was young. I do recommend this movie for those who have read the book.