Fantastic Fest 2024: ‘Párvulos’ captures grim nature of life itself

According to Isaac Ezban’s Párvulos, there are only two constants in nature: family and change. Those concepts lie at the center of a post-apocalyptic tale about how a haphazardly released vaccine led to the Omega pandemic. With a slowly fading humanity, survivors must navigate a sea of flesh-eating zombies and learn what it means to live again. From the rich characters to the cinematography, Ezban’s latest offering keeps you gripped and locked into the story. Despite hitting two hours, there’s little meat on the bone that doesn’t actually mean something.

Salvador (Farid Escalante Correa) takes good care of his younger brothers Oliver (Leonardo Cervantes) and Benjamin (Mateo Ortega Casillas). Their parents ventured into the wilderness to hunt for food, leaving Salvador to become the man of the house. Missing part of his left leg, he does the best he can with what he has, and by this point, he has learned how to kill food, collect resources, and teach his siblings what it means to live off the land. But there’s something else: the brothers keep a monster chained in their basement. Feeding it dog meat and rats, their decision puts them in grave danger, but the shocking revelation makes all the sense in the world.

Coming of age, Salvador struggles with the usual teen things, like carnal lust and missing what came before. His survival instincts serve him well, rooted in a tragic incident that led to his amputated leg. He doesn’t let it weigh him down, however; it actually feeds his determination to protect his brothers. Forced to grow up, he understands that to really live, you must do (literally) whatever it takes, even if you have to sacrifice a part of yourself to do it. As the group waits for a cure to drop from helicopters and planes, they live day by day, often trekking further and further away from home to find what they need.

Things escalate when a girl named Valerie (Carla Adell) arrives on their property and begs for food and water. Salvador allows her into his home (with guns cocked and loaded) and to spend the night. But the next morning, a grisly discovery leads to nothing but catastrophe for the group. These emotional moments fuel the story. Without such driving forces, Párvulos would simply not be as effective as it is.

The visual storytelling is just as compelling. Optical distortion and desaturation characterize the camera work to transmit a sense of detachment and coldness. It’s the end of the world, after all, and those choices (courtesy of cinematographer Rodrigo Sandoval) boost the emotional depth of the story and guide the viewer directly into Ezban’s well-constructed world. The zombie design is simple, but it doesn’t need to be anything more. The film’s efficiency lies in the creative team’s willingness to lean into a “less is more” sensibility.

Párvulos is much more than an apocalyptic horror. It’s a character study into the fragility of human existence and how grief will make you do the craziest things. It may even turn you into a murderer. From the remarkable talent in front of the camera to the thoughtful camera work, the film operates on all cylinders to offer a story that’s as timely as ever. Many have supposed the film is anti-vax, considering our own ongoing pandemic, but that could not be further from the truth. The film is about humanity pushed to the brink and what you’ll do to save the ones you love. Ezban sanitizes any sociopolitical beliefs and cuts to the cold, hard truth: if the apocalypse were to happen, we’re all screwed.

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