Film ReviewsCartel Land: far from god and so close to the united states
Oct 8, 2015 Anchorage Press
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"¡Pobre México! ¡Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos!" (Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!) is a quote often attributed to Mexican dictator, Porfirio Díaz somewhere around 1900, though its origin is not certain. The quote reflects the complex relationship between Mexico and the US and also acknowledges the double-edged sword that it represents for both countries. Cartel Land is a strong but narrowly focused documentary, and director, Matthew Heineman's narrow focus is also a double-edged sword. One the one hand, the film provides an unapologetic, graphic, and real look at the violence drug cartels dispense at the drop of a hat; on the other hand, the director assumes viewers will have enough knowledge and understanding of the reasons why Mexico has become cartel land. Executive producer Kathryn Bigelow is an intellectual heavyweight whose work focuses on contemporary and cultural stories that challenge viewers through the exposition of conflicts and conditions in uncomfortably direct ways. She is a two-time Oscar winner, recently known for the critically acclaimed, multi-Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty.
If the following two facts would have been explicitly presented in Cartel Land, the film would have been even more compelling. 1. The illegal drug market worldwide is estimated at about $321 billion, over $100 billion is in the U.S alone; and 2. the United States is estimated to spend under $27 billion in 2015 to fight the drug trade, the combined expenditures include treatment, prevention, domestic law enforcement, international, and interdiction (interception of drugs coming into the US).
Cartel Land provides a solid cinematic structure that allows two parallel storylines to intersect effortlessly. The opening scenes sets the tone and directly address why the cartels are so prevalent, and how they are able to coerce and take hostage entire communities, involving people in production and trafficking slaves by hook or by crook. The answer is straightforward: There is a huge demand for drugs in the United States, and people in Mexico are disenfranchised and powerless. The film focuses on Michoacán, a beautiful state with rich indigenous populations and an economy traditionally driven by agriculture, fishing and trade. Its position as a western port makes it a strategic logistical and transfer point in the drug route, and a hornets' nest of drug lords. Cartel Land tells the story of the citizen movement that emerged to take their state back one pueblo at a time, and the subsequent backlash from the Mexican government and its collusion with the cartels in power. The movement known as "Autodefensas" was led by Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known simply as "El Doctor." The film portrays the raw nature of the conflicts, and while the painful bloodbath may bring viewers to tears, the tears shed by the people interviewed in the towns are a veil hiding the ire that is building up into resistance through more and more frequent protests.
The second storyline runs along the Mexican-US border, in Arizona's Altar Valley. The 52-mile desert corridor along the border known as "Cocaine Alley" is in part guarded by Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran who heads Arizona Border Recon, a paramilitary group, to the chagrin of the U.S. government, human rights groups, and undocumented people trying to cross. Cartel Land provides a glimpse of Foley whose stance is at times extreme, and especially unnerving is his treatment of undocumented people as "illegals." Foley at times doesn't differentiate the cartel trade from the economic, and political problems that drive people to seek safety and opportunity. To his credit, Heineman explores Foley's story deeply enough to give viewers a clearer picture of Foley. Foley, like all human beings, is complex and viewers learn what Foley is doing, for better or worse, is reacting to a system of immigration that is broken, and the US denial of the drug culture that has flourished.
After a heartbreaking journey from Michoacán to Arizona, from the total political disintegration in Mexico, to the broken US system of immigration and seemingly insatiable appetite for drugs, Cartel Land brings the viewer full circle, leaving more questions than answers. But, after watching Cartel Land, viewers are left with a sense of the double-edged sword and a better understanding of what it means to be so far from God, and so close to the United States.
Cartel Land shows at 8:20 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 12 at Bear Tooth.
If the following two facts would have been explicitly presented in Cartel Land, the film would have been even more compelling. 1. The illegal drug market worldwide is estimated at about $321 billion, over $100 billion is in the U.S alone; and 2. the United States is estimated to spend under $27 billion in 2015 to fight the drug trade, the combined expenditures include treatment, prevention, domestic law enforcement, international, and interdiction (interception of drugs coming into the US).
Cartel Land provides a solid cinematic structure that allows two parallel storylines to intersect effortlessly. The opening scenes sets the tone and directly address why the cartels are so prevalent, and how they are able to coerce and take hostage entire communities, involving people in production and trafficking slaves by hook or by crook. The answer is straightforward: There is a huge demand for drugs in the United States, and people in Mexico are disenfranchised and powerless. The film focuses on Michoacán, a beautiful state with rich indigenous populations and an economy traditionally driven by agriculture, fishing and trade. Its position as a western port makes it a strategic logistical and transfer point in the drug route, and a hornets' nest of drug lords. Cartel Land tells the story of the citizen movement that emerged to take their state back one pueblo at a time, and the subsequent backlash from the Mexican government and its collusion with the cartels in power. The movement known as "Autodefensas" was led by Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known simply as "El Doctor." The film portrays the raw nature of the conflicts, and while the painful bloodbath may bring viewers to tears, the tears shed by the people interviewed in the towns are a veil hiding the ire that is building up into resistance through more and more frequent protests.
The second storyline runs along the Mexican-US border, in Arizona's Altar Valley. The 52-mile desert corridor along the border known as "Cocaine Alley" is in part guarded by Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran who heads Arizona Border Recon, a paramilitary group, to the chagrin of the U.S. government, human rights groups, and undocumented people trying to cross. Cartel Land provides a glimpse of Foley whose stance is at times extreme, and especially unnerving is his treatment of undocumented people as "illegals." Foley at times doesn't differentiate the cartel trade from the economic, and political problems that drive people to seek safety and opportunity. To his credit, Heineman explores Foley's story deeply enough to give viewers a clearer picture of Foley. Foley, like all human beings, is complex and viewers learn what Foley is doing, for better or worse, is reacting to a system of immigration that is broken, and the US denial of the drug culture that has flourished.
After a heartbreaking journey from Michoacán to Arizona, from the total political disintegration in Mexico, to the broken US system of immigration and seemingly insatiable appetite for drugs, Cartel Land brings the viewer full circle, leaving more questions than answers. But, after watching Cartel Land, viewers are left with a sense of the double-edged sword and a better understanding of what it means to be so far from God, and so close to the United States.
Cartel Land shows at 8:20 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 12 at Bear Tooth.