“Pepe” (2024) Review

Late last year, I watched Dahomey, a film that tried to mix the ghostly narration of an ancient spirit with the modern-day political documentary of Benin. At a brisk 68 minutes, that film touched on the lingering voices of lost traditions and the concerns of preserving it in the present, where the anti-colonialism movement has been slow. Pepe, however, makes the mistake of trying to mix a ho-hum human drama of the Dominican Republic with the existential contemplations of a dead hippo. This film...