El Infierno is the first Mexican-made movie we've seen in theaters. The basic plot line is that a middle-aged man, Benny, returns to his hometown in northern Mexico after being deported from the US. He'd been away for twenty years, and now in 2010, the town is a hot-bed for drug-related crime and violence. Benny needs work and unwillingly gets involved with a drug-trafficking mafia that he can't escape. The over-all tone of the film begins campy and comedic, painting an exaggerated portrait of corruption and lawlessness in the north. For example, a catholic bishop wearing sunglasses accepts a bribe to bless Benny's new gun. But as the brutal acts of violence accelerate and intensify, it's not funny anymore. People are scalped, shot point blank in the head, and then decapitated. Their bodies are left on the side of the road like garbage with their arms and legs bound together. Almost all the characters wind up dead, including the children. These images resonate so deeply because it's what we see in the papers everyday about drug violence in the north. I've never been more disturbed walking out of a theater. The filmmakers draw you into this fictitious town with eccentric characters and then let the story sink into a painful truth.
What I find most shocking is how a film so critical of the government and president and the bicentennial celebrations was funded almost entirely by the government. (President Felipe Calderon actually watched the movie.) It's also doing well at the box office.
El Infierno certainly taps a nerve in Mexico. Let us know if it makes it to the USA.
-PJ
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