I think this might have made a good 30 minute short. I have not read the Steinbeck novella. I have read "East of Eden," "The Grapes of Wrath," and "Cannery Row," so I'm not ignorant of his work. Though I liked his novels an stories when I was younger, having a BA in English ,I know he is not considered a great writer on the level of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, or Faulkner. But his stories, "The Red Pony" is another, have a simplicity which make them a good tool for getting young people interested in reading. An English teacher gives examples in their review of how the 2001 film version of this same work differs from the novella. Presuming he or she is correct, this film also deviates from Steinbeck's story. In this film, Juana is presented as urging Kino to not go back down again and attempt to find an oyster with a pearl. In the story she is said to be praying for him to find one. Once he brings the oyster up and opens it, an ominous dark cloud appears above them. Trite and heavy-handed is too kind a description of sort of lazy film making. Yes it's well photographed, but exceptionally pretty photography for its own sake is a detriment in a narrative fictional movie, not a virtue. The visual aspect of a narrative film should move the story forward. In this case those scenes tend to stop the narrative dead in it's tracks. There are long sequences in "La Perla" that are nothing but a travelogue put in to pad the running time, while other portions are obviously shot on RKO's back lot. There's nothing realistic about the clean clothes of most of the villagers, and the perfect makeup of the leading lady is always in place, even after she's allegedly been trudging through a swamp for days. This is a phony Hollywood film. If you want to see the real conditions Mexicans and Mexican Americans lived under see "Salt of the Earth," even though it is set in the New Mexico. That's a great film. This is a one note morality tale with mediocre acting and trite symbolism.
