A documentary by Juan Carlos Rulfo. In Spanish with English subtitles. Unrated. Plays Sunday, July 31, and Thursday, August 4, at the Pacific Cinémathí¨que

There are many claimants to the title "Father of Magic Realism", including Argentina's Jorge Luis Borges, Guatemala's Miguel Angel Asturias, Cuba's Alejo Carpentier, and even, dubiously (for reasons of chronology, not quality), Colombia's Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez. One of the more obscure pretenders to this literary throne was Juan Rulfo, a fact not exactly explained in Juan, I Forgot I Don't Remember, director Juan Rulfo junior's poetic search for memories of his old man, who died in 1986.

For the vibrant senior citizens interviewed in the arid landscapes of Jalisco state, the Juan Rulfo (the elder) they knew was not the man who was voted one of the two best Spanish-language writers of the 20th century, whose novel Pedro Paramo was so influential that one of its sentences was reproduced intact in Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Neither was he the tragic figure whose landowning family was ruined by the Mexican Revolution, whose father and two uncles were murdered, and whose mother succumbed to a grief- triggered heart attack.

No, for the handful of people who remember Rulfo, he was a trickster, a joker, a bullshit artist, a merry friend, a potential lover. They recall the man in tiny chunks, chunks that never seem to add up to a whole. Compared to their testimony, the fabled blind men's account of the elephant was right on the money.

Then again, perhaps this documentary isn't really about one man after all. Rulfo junior's loving, infinitely patient treatment of his frequently maddening interview subjects demonstrates great tenderness for what time does to all of us eventually.

Coupled with some truly breathtaking footage of the natural world-which, remarkably, eschews the baroque splendours of Guadalajara and the lush mountains of the Sierra Madres as too easily pleasing options-this prismatic testimony creates a jigsaw puzzle that each viewer must reassemble in his or her own head.

Biopics were never like this.