This article was written by Lauren Weiner.
Wetiko is a beautiful movie. Its visual allure comes from the sinister yet whimsical filmmaking. At some uncertain point in the narrative, you begin to feel like you're drifting through a bad dream, reliving disorienting memories of a night-gone-wrong.
The story follows Aapo (Juan Daniel García Treviño), a young Mayan man who works at his mother’s pet shop. When a woman from the "conscious community of the Empire of Love" asks Aapo to deliver hallucinogenic toads from the store to their jungle settlement, he becomes intertwined with their strange mysticism created by a Euro-Western shaman.
Great themes of culture clash and colonization lie within Wetiko. On one level, Zake (Neil Sandilands), the indoctrinating "shaman", seems like an all-encompassing representation of how dominant groups like Europeans can sour smaller, indigenous cultures. There’s nuance in this, which is, truthfully, hard to do without painting broad strokes or being too on-the-nose.
Wetiko is able to capture this cultural war so well because the scope of Zake’s followers is wide. There are white "influencer shamans" who come to the South American jungle for Zake’s teachings; a handful of the cult members seem to have grown up with traditional Mayan customs. Other Empire of Love members are Latino youths who feel a hunger to reach their disconnected ancestral roots.
On a deeper level, Wetiko shows its audience how new-age folk mysticism—much like traditional religion—can be co-opted by any sort of power-hungry person as long as they’re convincing enough. Neo-Mayan mysticism is just Zake’s chosen vessel for acquiring the control he craves. Wetiko also manages to make this truly horrifying.
These themes wouldn’t come through as much as they do if it weren’t for the creative decisions that were made. There’s really not another modern movie color-graded or lit like Wetiko is. The colors are lush and vibrant; they look similar to the kind in ‘90s film stock. At the start of the story, the scenes are dominated by the hazy afternoon sun and South American flora. Once the plot is established and Aapo involves himself in the "conscious community," the color usage explodes, and the screen fills with every shade in the rainbow.
In the night jungle—where most of the film takes place—the colors are musky. These heavy hues are complemented by the neon lights hung all over the settlement. They’re wrapped around tree trunks, droop over the campfire, and hang around people’s necks and wrists; there’s rarely a moment that lacks them. In turn, everything looks rich, and deep, but bright; misty and foggy too. You become entrenched in the same sweltering jungle Aapo is in.
Rising indie director Kerry Mondragon makes every shot unique. He does a great job of balancing his foregrounds and backgrounds. Moving shots are steady when they need to be, and have a dreamy bounce at the right times too. There are zoom-ins that add some nice tension, and close-ups that capture great emotional depth.
Off-center angles make already confusing, blurry moments more intense. A subjective favorite is the shots of jungle caves, which give natural and intricate framing. Best of all, Wetiko was made on 16-mm film, not on a digital camera.
The movie’s low budget works to its benefit and adds to the visual allure too. Surely, no sound stages were used in production. All the "sets" are simply real locations, with rooms as messy and lived in as they should be, and the outdoors as beautiful as organic nature tends to be.
The costumes, hair, and makeup are rough and tumble. The cast members are unfamiliar faces, yet the acting is A-list quality. Admirably, Wetiko casts many indigenous peoples, too, adding to the realism. The film also manages to create daze-inducing psychedelic effects that aren’t overdone or dramatic.
Above all, it’s clear this movie was made with a lot of love and effort, which makes Wetiko a good reminder that you don’t need a big budget or major studio backing to produce something breathtaking.
Wetiko is now available on digital platforms.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider supporting Third Coast Review’s arts and culture coverage by making a donation. Choose the amount that works best for you, and know it goes directly to support our writers and contributors.