Peluca (2002) Review

 

Peluca (2002)

Peluca follows three high school students, Seth, Pedro, and Giel, as they ditch school to go to the thrift shop in search of a new fanny pack.

So, I somehow stumbled upon the fact that 2004’s Napoleon Dynamite (which is still one of the funniest movies in existence) actually has a predecessor in Peluca, a short film by an unknown (at the time) BYU student, Jared Hess. We see so much of the prototype for Napoleon Dynamite in this too, featuring similar characters, familiar locations and scenes, as well as the same awkward, Idaho humor. Seth is Napoleon to a T, containing the same goofy perm haircut, the same vocal dialectics, and the exact same nerdy but he thinks he’s cool attitude. He is unquestionably the kicker of this short project, standing out above the rest and contributing a style of humor that we can relate to in its silly ignorance.

The quality is admittedly awful, being shot on grainy as hell 10mm black and white film, in a budgetary move that actually adds to the dull stylistics for such a rural area. The audio is tediously distracting, always being louder than the rest of what’s happening on screen, typically feeling out of place as well, failing to match the tone presented. It honestly would’ve done better without any random noises or music at all, but that’s just a personal gripe.

Given that it’s just a short 9 minutes, we get a relatively small cast of locals, featuring Greg Hansen, Chris Sanchez, Bracken Johnson, and Jon Heder. As I mentioned above, Seth played excellently by Heder (the one big constant between the two movies) is the best part of this, giving every scene an odd amount of effort compared to the rest, to the point where he almost sticks out, but in a good way.

Peluca, directed by Jared Hess, is in no means great, it’s actually quite bad, but it lays the groundwork for what we now know as Napoleon Dynamite, borrowing (or starting) a lot of the same themes and humor that make that so great, in this distinctly unique short film.

5.1/10