‘Bless Me, Ultima’ Shows the Darkness and Wonder of Life

By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic

A deeply satisfying feat of storytelling, “Bless Me, Ultima” makes a difficult task look easy. It combines innocence and experience, the darkness and wonder of life, in a way that is not easy to categorize but a rich pleasure to watch.

Taken from Rudolfo Anaya’s landmark book, perhaps the bestselling Chicano novel of all time, “Bless Me, Ultima” presented certain obstacles. Though its protagonist is a very young boy, what he observes of life is not exclusively kindhearted. The story has the honesty of emotion you’d associate with having a 6-year-old as protagonist, but likely material for a Disney film this is not.

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[Photo courtesy Arenas Group]