Cartel Land is a brutal commentary on the endless cycle of violence associated with the drug trade.
It is also an action-packed thriller, executed with much skill.
In this brilliant documentary, director Matthew Heineman manages -and one wonders how - to follow the rise and fall of the Self-Defense groups (Autodefensas) in Michoacán, Mexico, two years ago, when a group of civilians formed their own militia to confront the violent and ruthless Knight Templars cartel.
The film opens with a group of people cooking meth, in what seems like a scene from "Breaking Bad."
"God willing, we will always make drugs," says a hooded man in Spanish. We don't know who they are until Heineman cuts back to this scene toward the end of the film.
Most of Cartel Land follows the charismatic leader of the Autodefensas, José Manuel Mireles, a physician who led the movement. (Mireles was eventually arrested and later freed by Mexican authorities.)
"We decided to die fighting," Mireles says, explaining that each militiaman had a relative killed, kidnapped or raped by the Templars cartel.
Heineman's camera takes the viewer straight into the action: the screaming, the arrests and the gun shootings. You feel more like a participant than a witness.
He also succeeds in making his audience aware of the anguish people are going through.
The sense of helplessness and frustration with the government also is evident. In one scene, a screaming woman almost literally kicks out the army from the town when soldiers come to disarm the Autodefensas.
It is inevitable to sympathize with Mireles when he explains why the citizens of Tepalcatepec decided to take up arms against the drug traffickers. The film shows the evolution of the Autodefensas and how they eventually give in to corruption, triggering rejection from the people they claim to be defending. This happens even as the Mexican government gives them legal status.
The viewers' perception of Mireles and his group radically changes by the end of the film.
Heineman tries to provide a point of comparison by exploring -back and forth-- an American border militia in the Arizona dessert. He follows a group called Arizona Border Recon led by a vigilante known as Nailer, who insists that in the fight between good and evil, he represents the good.
But the reality, as seen in Michoacán, is much more complex.
The pattern in these militia groups, from Mexico and the U.S., is much the same. Nailer insists that he is fighting the Mexican cartels, but in the Arizona sequences you only see his militias catching undocumented immigrants.
Led by Heineman's deft hand, Cartel Land's lets you reach your own conclusions, even as you watch the inevitable descent to hell.
By Juan F. Jaramillo/Al Día
CARTEL LAND (A-)
Director: Matthew Heineman, 98 minutes, opening this weekend at the Angelika Film Center Plano and Cinemark Grand Prairie 15
