Juan, I Forgot I Don't Remember

Running time: N/A

Juan, I Forgot I Don't Remember is the kind of inspirational film that composes a delicious poem of identity and memory, as a son journeys to reconstruct the life of his father. The result is a montage of hauntingly beautiful images and stories that are merged to form one of this year's most mesmerizing gems. Director Juan Carlos Rulfo is the son of renowned Mexican writer and poet, Juan Rulfo. Returning to the town of Jalisco, Mexico, Rulfo interviews all of the elders who remember his late father. This results in an often humorous revelation that, along with the remembered details, there are just as many forgotten, unsaid details. It is soon apparent that the accounts brought forth by Jalisco's elders are woven of threads of the real, the borrowed, and even the invented--resulting in what the director coins as "docu-fiction." First-time director, Juan Carlos Rulfo, creates a mature, personal, and contemplative portrait of the geography of human relationships that surround his father's past. It is not simply the story of a great poet but a lyrical ballad of a village and the hard, yet dignified, life of its inhabitants. --Mike Rabehl