Yesterday I watched a short BBC news clip about narcocine, which are generally straight to DVD flicks financed by drug lords to celebrate their exploits. Also mentioned was this controversial film El Infierno, (hell) currently playing in Mexican theaters. Jenny and I went out to see it last night. If anything El Infierno mocks the lifestyle of the narcos, but that doesn't mean the government likes it. Mexican officials, including the president, have lined up to criticize this film, which is I think the best press coverage a movie like this could hope for. Like the U.S., Mexico is a country that engages in a fair amount of flag-draped patriotic gobbledygook. Those bicentennial México 2010 signs (see image) have become more conspicuous than taco stands. The graffiti scrawled under this one reads: nada que celebrar (nothing to celebrate). In a feat of admirable chutzpah, the director managed to get a fair amount of money out of the Mexican government to make this film, then released it right at the bicentennial. The film is over the top, violent, foul-mouthed, and really funny.
It follows the story of an espanglish speaking immigrant who is deported back to Mexico after 20 years to find that his brother became a chingón in the local mafia before being gunned down. Wanting to find out what happened to his brother and with few employment options, the humble pinche pocho slowly gets entangled in the world of narcotraficantes.
Exaggerated, casual, and even humorous violence has become fairly common in movies, but it was far stranger to see it in this one. In the U.S. we may indulge in such fantasies, but when was the last time you saw an actual news story (domestic) about someone beheaded with a chainsaw or dissolved in a barrel of acid? In Mexico this stuff really happens, which made this kind of scene very disturbing (especially with the whole audience, including myself, rolling with laughter).
We only got about half as many jokes as the rest of the audience, but it was still hilarious. It takes the piss out of every authority figure in Mexico, from politicians groveling at the feet of drug lords, to clergy sprinkling holy water on handguns for US $100 bills, to policemen who can be bribed with a handful of drugs, to federales who hand their informants back over to the mafia. One of the things I found funniest was all of the gaudy, tacky, chafa shit they spend their money on. The narcos strut around like peacocks with stuffed tigers and gold-tipped cowboy boots, while everything in the background is dust, concrete, and broken down cars. In one scene the main character, now a successful narco, decides to help out his godfather who runs a failing tire shop. A new, brightly painted store with flashing lights is shown where the ramshackle building once stood.
"Thanks," his dazed godfather replies with a straight face, "now all I need are customers."
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