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.

Carl Franklin did an admirable job in "Bless Me, Ultima". The movie itself followed the book correctly which is what I like in a movie. But that is not the wow-factor that made this movie stand out in my opinion. Franklin's use of Diegetic Sound and Extreme Long Shots really allowed the setting to stand out visually, audibly and perhaps emotionally. The land is one of the most treasured factors of the book and is made important in the movie as well. The ambiance is inordinately imperative and consequential in any movie but more so in this movie. Franklin's use of Diegetic Sound is just outright prodigious. He allows the setting to stand out not only visually, but audibly. These scant yet meaningful sounds that allow the land to really protrude through the stereotypical meaning of a setting to almost make the land come to life. In the book, the "llano" was one of the biggest components. The way Franklin also avails Extreme Long Shots very well. At almost every conversion there is an Extreme Long Shot so the audience can see the land at numerous angles, to really seize the importance of the land to its people. More so when Ultima and Antonio pick out herbs there are multiple Extreme or Normal Long Shots so the audience can get a great glimpse of the "llano". Those two aspects of the film are really what stood out to me in the audience because of how detailed each transition was along with the sound quality to make the land really speak for itself.

After having read the book, I made the rational assumption that the movie would at least try to convey the main themes expressed in the book. Although an entertaining coming of age film, it failed to address, arguably, the most important theme in the book, Antonio's struggle to find his identity. For starters, the narrator in the movie was a grown man. As the audience, I found it hard to connect this man's voice with the thoughts inside the head of an 8 year old. If a young boy was used as a narrator, I believe Antonio's inner conflicts while coming of age would have been better represented. In Addition, Franklin left out all the scenes that built upon Antonio's cultural and religious conflicts such as the golden carp and the dream of his birth. However, although he left an important theme out, Franklin was successful in conveying other themes. In the book, the connection between one's spirit and the spirit of nature was very prevalent. Franklin did a great job at illustrating this by using many diegetic and non-diegetic nature sounds along with scene-opening long shots to show the natural surroundings. Moreover, Franklin did a great job conveying the magical powers of Ultima and her owl. A director could easily go overboard on the magic portion of the story and turn it in to a total fantasy, Franklin kept it subtle. For example, during the scene when Antonio and Ultima are preparing to lift the curse laid upon his uncle, Antonio feels safe when he hears Ultima's owl outside scaring away the wolves. Instead of actually showing an owl scaring away a pack of wolves, we are able to just imagine it which keeps it from becoming too fantasized. After the curse is lifted, the owl appears in the bedroom window to show that it has been protecting them throughout the night. All in all, although Franklin missed a key theme, his execution of the rest of the story made up for it.

The novel, which has become a staple of high-school lesson plans and thus qualifies as Great Literature, deserves all the plaudits that have been heaped upon it. I read the work for the first time a few years ago and found it very moving. Like To Kill a Mockingbird (to which it has often been compared), its deceptively simple coming-of-age tale is the prism through which we are allowed a view of a larger picture: the merging of a mystically-inclined Native American way of life and more establishmentarian (and yet, in its way, even more superstitious) Catholic Hispanic culture, as well as the impact encroaching modernity has on both. Moreover, the story explored, through the relationship between young Antonio and the wise old curandera Ultima, the meaning of the connections human beings have with one another and the natural world of which they are a part, all beautifully weaved together by the skill of the author Rudolfo Anaya. (I will also add that, when I read the novel, its simple but powerful evocation of a distant time and place, the love between a growing and inquisitive boy and the old woman who effectively serves as his grandmother, and the neo-pagan lessons she imparts all helped me through a tough time, which is certainly one of the blessings of great writing.) So one can imagine my excitement when it was announced a film version was finally in the works and now, after having seen the movie, one may also imagine my disappointment over a work that is barely a shadow of the book. While decidedly earnest and also largely faithful to the source material, the film has none of the magical beauty of the novel. Indeed, the whole enterprise seems misbegotten. I suspect Carl Franklin, a talented director who has made such fine films as One False Move and Devil in a Blue Dress, was the wrong choice for this project. The direction is humdrum and the script he penned is weak, beginning with the idea of having the great Al Molina narrate the story as an adult Antonio. While it's always good to see a film make liberal use of Hispanic actors, every role, other than Miriam Colon as Ultima, seems miscast. The whole movie, for lack of a better description, just lays there, possesses little if any of the wonder over life and love and nature that Anaya made come alive on the page.In his review, the late Roger Ebert generally praised this film, stating that the movie took its time and did not, as so many other films in this day and age often do, completely dispense with subtlety and over explain everything. While I appreciate his point, I think a film can sometimes be too spare and thus too obscure. It was a mistake, I think, to focus so much on young Antonio and his sometimes confused child's eye view of the world. It would have been enlightening, particularly for those who haven't read the novel, to see more of Ultima and her "magic," her pagan-infused Catholic teachings.A completely re-written script would have well served this project and the fuller and more subtly complex film that might have resulted would have come closer to capturing what the author conveyed. I missed seeing that golden fish in the river.