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Narco Cultura
  • One of the best docs I've seen this year, and the available light cinematography is, frankly, amazing. Shot on a 5D of course with no rig.

    http://collider.com/narco-cultura-interview-shaul-schwarz/

    http://www.shaulschwarz.com/

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  • Looks like an interesting doc. Disgusting people though.

  • Disgusting people though.

    ...that's exactly the point of a great documentary....to break our preconceived "notions" of what we think we know ! Why are these people "disgusting" and not some wallstreet bankster who uses their product , or all the trash coke, pot and methheads all over the USA who support the narco organizations thru direct contributions ? But an even better question is...why are they disgusting, when our own government is the biggest drug smuggler on the planet , and are most likely the main protagonist in this war ?

    Maybe you're jumping to a preconceived idea , planted by a controlled media. It's no coincidence that this romanticizing the narco culture comes not so much from within Mexico, but from the USA. If you watch the doc you see that Mexicans can't understand idolizing the perpetrators of this insanity. That's the structure of the film. It's divided , also showing unbelievably intimate scenes of a homicide investigator in Juarez.

    This unbelievable access that Schwartz achieved with both protagonists is the films' genius. At the end of the film, it's hard not to ask, why, if in Mexico these narco songs which glorify the violence are banned, in the USA they are making millions ?

  • Maybe you're jumping to a preconceived idea...

    My stepfather was kidnapped by people tied to the cartels. The "ringleader" had a relative in Mexico who owed them money. That was his solution, turning on a former employer, someone who wasn't rich or connected or of that world in any way. So fuck you very much.

    The ignorant shit heads that idolize the narcos who behead, burn alive, etc., etc. and kill their own people (not necessarily just other narco shit heads) in numbers higher in a year or two than the entirety of our post-911 military activity overseas are on both sides of the border. The twisted pseudo-Catholicism that produced a narco "saint" is mostly that side.

    I'm fully aware that the "war on drugs" is a farce. But what we have here, with the cartels, is wholly different than the romanticised bootleggers of Prohibition here or the noirish Italian mobster, either in film or in reality. If you ask me, if we're going to defy sovereignty of a foreign nation for the good of its own people and advancement of our own self interests we should be rolling tanks into Mexico and rounding up every Sineloa and Gulf and Zeta in sight and hope they resist so that they can be erased from the Earth. So, good thing I'm not in charge.

    Why are they making money here? Because we have free expression and no shortage of douchebags. It's no different than gangster rap I suppose, and all the idolizing associated with "thug life". To a certain extent, if done right, for vicarious entertainment, fine. As a punchline, even better. But the folks that take it seriously are just sad. They're sad and the existence that would produce such a mentality is even sadder.

    Still, I look forward to viewing the documentary. If it's trying to insinuate that the narco idolizing is mostly on this side of the border it's as misleading as the Mexico tourism board's blatant denial of the elephant in the room, or the oft held notion that the violence is limited to the border. Heads roll in Cancun and PV too. But the filmmaker sounds like they have the right intentions so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  • Ethnocentricity ? The US government runs and arms the mexican cartels. The cia smuggled their guns into mexico and then allowed c140's full of coke to land in secret nevada bases. Nothing new. Afghanistan's opium crop multiplied by 1000% after the US invaded. Iran/Contra....air america. Read Gary Webbs' dark Alliance. The US trained the zetas in their USA assassin escuela of las americas . The US society supports their business model, otherwise there wouldn't be any business. Typical gringo attitude that it's everyone elses fault but their own, when just the opposite is true ! If you want to know the origin of the disease....look out your front door !

  • @BurnetRhoades Actually I too know someone who was kidnapped by a Mexican cartel. And I'm fairly far removed from that world. I'm no Walter White, believe me. Those cartel tentacles get longer and longer.

  • Yes...as they arrest the upper bosses, the cartels splinter and the lower levels look for incomes to substitute for the drugs. But the inescapable truth is ...the market and the politics comes from the USA. The only people I know who use drugs in mexico are gringos. I'm sure there are some mexicans but a small minority.

    I have experienced telephone extortion and it wasn't pretty esp. when I told them where their mothers should go. I've lived in Mexico for 25 years and know of, but don't know a single person who's been kidnapped, and they were mexican. Not a single american has been kidnapped where I live, and there's hundreds of american tourist every day. I know of a few americans who've been whacked however. Most were into young boys and were looking for a problem. We get alot of those types of tourists as well ! I imagine the boys uncles', or fathers, or big brothers didn't take to their new friends. And the dumb gringos that fill the cantinas thinking they know the learning curve. They took one of those and filled him with 45 caliber holes when he was flirting with the wrong woman. It's still alot safer than chicago though !

  • And cue the apologist finger pointing. It was the White Devil that made me do it.

  • @BurnetRhoades

    ...I don't think watching the doc will help you Burnet, since you have the typical american attitude of "it's always someone elses fault". Or at least that's what they drone on Fox.

    And now in Ukraine...those upstart Russians again. But you don't hear anything in the american news about us backing the nazi rebels....just like syria....and libya ...and iraq...and afghanistan.

    Yep...here come the americans to save the day ! But speaking of "disgusting" people. Last week I watched "Nebraska". Man...now those are disgusting people. Not one sympathetic character in the whole friggin' film. I'd guess that was exactly the filmmakers point. To portray a culture in decline.

  • The irony in your response, it's delicious.