Sundance Day Four

Wound up this year's Sundance experience with a couple of Latin-based films in Park City.  Neither one are likely to be recognized as some of the best films of the festival, but they both have their value and I feel fortunate to have seen them.

Narco Cultura

Documentary about the glorification of the drug lord culture in Mexico.  This is so sad it's painful.  Juarez, a city of 1.3 million people, has 3500 murders a year.  It's currently the center of a power struggle (ok, a power war) between two rival major drug cartels.  Those doing the killing are the "Narcos," operatives and drug trade leaders working for their organizations in the local areas.  The government is at a loss, as local officials are frequently bought off by the cartels.  Less than 3% of the murders are even investigated.  Everyone lives in fear.

Tragic. Hopeless.  

Along with the violent realities is the Narco culture which has become popular.  The Narcos are often reverenced like modern-day Robin Hoods--selling drugs to ugly Americans and bringing the money back to impoverished Mexico.  The corrido, a traditional Mexican ballad, has been usurped by the Narco's and is inexplicably popular with the masses.  The music glorifies lawlessness and violence in ways that make Eminem look like Donny Osmond.  The songs are not fictional, but generally told about real people and actual events.  In fact, songs are even commissioned by Narcos to build their reputations.  And then they go mainstream.  It was surreal watching families, old women and children at concerts and dances sing along to lyrics like this:

We take care of El Mayo 

Here no one betrays him… 
We stay tough with AK-47s and bazookas at the neck 
Chopping heads off as they come 
We’re bloody-thirsty crazy men 
Who like to kill.
               --The Komander

I've decided I won't be retiring to Juarez.


No
A fascinating drama about the 1988 Chilean election that threw dictator Augusto Pinochet out of office.  This is a riveting story born at the intersection of history, politics and advertising.  Starring Gael Garcia Bernal (the second movie we saw him in this festival) as an advertising executive that works for the coalition of mostly leftists in what appears to be a hopeless cause.  Pinochet, who led a regime of corruption and oppression, had been put into office largely due to US support and only sanctioned the elections in response to international pressure.  Everyone assumed they were a sham and the results were inevitable.  While television was nationalized, to give the illusion of fairness the opposition was given 15 minutes of television time a day, while the Pinochet government was free to propagandize the other 23 hours and 45 minutes.  What emerged, as much as anything, was a marketing story where the fate of the country hung on advertising strategy and creative genius.

The movie is in Spanish with English subtitles and is shot in low-def, 80's-vintage film, which may be annoying to some.  It will get very limited release in the US, I expect, but may play better in South America.

Sundance Moment: Sitting in the theater waiting for the movie to start Rebecca suddenly motions to this lady walking by and speaks to her excitedly in Spanish (without subtitles, meaning I had no idea what she was saying).  Turns out it was a woman she had never actually met, but had seen twice in Chile while attending church, both in December and in 2010.  They are visiting in the U.S. for six months.  The women exchanged contact info and plan to get together. It's a small, small world.