Among Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar’s notorious acts was his move to import four hippos from Africa. Brought to Escobar’s private zoo in the 1970s, the massive mammals became a headache after his death in 1993. They broke out of his estate and multiplied so profusely, they were classified as an invasive species.
One of them, named Pepe by the local media, was shot dead in 2009. A pushback from environmentalists prevented further culling. Colombia continues to grapple with the “cocaine hippo” vexation. An inventive film from the Dominican Republic provides an alternative way of approaching the problem.
Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’s debut feature Pepe is a shapeshifting chronicle, traversing several genres at once. Pepe combines documentary, staged sequences, magic realism and a serious examination of the consequences of unchecked human ambition.
The MUBI release is an imagined biography of Pepe, who muses about his predicament in a droll baritone from beyond the grave. Pepe’s ghost sadly observes that the ship that is transporting him to Colombia is “sailing towards an eternity” where no ancestors will ever visit him.
Violently pulled out of his habitat and forcibly transplanted to an alien land for amusement, Pepe struggles to make sense of his fate. A “two-legged” villager embarks on a Quixotic mission to kill Pepe. Human rituals – a beauty pageant, a wildlife tour by German tourists – impinge on Pepe and other hippos who would rather “remain static in the water”.
The 122-minute film is full of surprises. The elliptical narrative leaps from one idea to the next, demanding concentration. The gorgeous imagery has been filmed in both colour and black-and-white as well as in different aspect ratios.
Wildlife documentary-type footage of hippos are alternated with aerial shots of the landscape that the creatures have been forced to call home, only to be labelled as “infiltrators”. The larger commentary about Latin America’s brutal history of slavery is unmistakable.
Yet, Pepe is never didactic, instead inventively but also sombrely imagining Pepe’s plight while also playing with the possibilities of storytelling. Arias’s ambitious saga may be head-scratching on occasion, but it is always enchanting, marking him out as a director to watch out for.
