Pepe

When the 2024 Berlinale programme was released, festival management described Pepe as the most unclassifiable film in this year’s selection. This is quite the understatement, since there’s a strong case for Pepe being the most unclassifiable film of the year full stop – and it’s only February. This spellbinding peculiarity of a movie must be seen to be believed… and then seen again, just to be sure.

Is a hippopotamus who wonders how they’re able to speak (and even speculates about how they understand the very concept of words) an unreliable narrator? Quite possibly, but this is the titular Pepe, who is the narrator of his own story. Voiced by different actors as he needs to speak different languages, Pepe is a descendent of the original hippos transplanted to Colombia by the late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. The existential creature has been exiled into the Colombian countryside by his vicious brother Pablito, yet this simple description can’t sum up this intriguing plot and its many tangents.

Anyone who has seen Pepe won’t be surprised to learn that director Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias has a background in experimental film. That being said, the feature isn’t just a sequence of put-ons and affectations fighting for attention. It’s a highly-approachable piece of work that requires a certain amount of surrender from its audience – as in a total surrender of disbelief.

This isn’t a film that should be dismissed as quirky or eccentric, although it’s arguably both these things. Certain narcotics are described as gateway drugs – a habit that may lead to something harder. Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias might prove to be a gateway director for budding young cinephiles, offering something brilliantly thought-provoking that will lead them to expand their cinematic horizons.

Pepe is an unexpected treat that’s unlike anything else on the big screen. In this day and age of reboots, remakes, reimaginings and generally playing it safe, how often can something like that be said about a movie?

Oliver Johnston

Pepe does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival 2024 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.