'Narco Cultura' examines the glamorization through music of Mexico's drug lords
Here鈥檚 a sample lyric from a popular narcocorrido, the musical genre that celebrates Mexico鈥檚 drug cartels and their brutal bosses: 鈥淲ith an AK-47 and a bazooka on my shoulder/ Cross my path and I鈥檒l chop your head off/ We鈥檙e bloodthirsty, crazy and we like to kill.鈥�
Photojournalist Shaul Schwarz鈥檚 powerful documentary 鈥淣arco Cultura鈥� gets inside the world of two men who, in very different ways, inhabit this horror. Edgar Quintero is a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter and frontman for the band Buknas de Culiac谩n. He compares his narcocorridos to gangsta rap (as do others). He is often hired to compose personally crafted songs for drug lords.
Richie Soto is a crime-scene investigator in Ciudad Ju谩rez, Mexico, ground zero in the drug-cartel wars and often described as the murder capital of the world. In 2007 there were 320 murders in Ju谩rez. By 2010, the number had risen to 3,622. El Paso, Texas, across the river from Ju谩rez, had five murders in that same year.
Schwarz, without being schematic about it, cuts back and forth between these two men and their opposing lives. Quintero, with a beaming wife and young child, is an affable go-getter. He and his band mates dress up for concerts in gang regalia, sometimes toting fake AK-47s.
Although banned in Mexico, narcocorridos are increasingly popular. Do the young people who listen comprehend the connection between the lyrics and the reality? If they saw 鈥淣arco Cultura,鈥� they might think twice about what they are mouthing. Cartel bosses are glorified in these songs as Robin Hoods who give to the poor. Compared with someone with such swagger, a dogged soft-spoken investigator like Soto doesn鈥檛 stand a chance in popular culture, although he is the true hero.
When we see Quintero, in a tender singsong voice, warbling one of his violent ditties to his child, the dissonance between truth and fiction is almost unbearable. For Quintero, he is merely reflecting, and not fomenting, the Mexican drug-war mind-set. As he told a Los Angeles Times reporter, 鈥淚鈥檓 not going to change the world if I start singing about peace and love.鈥�
Meanwhile, back in Ju谩rez, where the streets run red, Soto is denigrated by the gangsters and their idolators as a mere 鈥渂ullet collector.鈥� And in fact, partly because of internal corruption at the highest reaches of the justice system, very few of these drug crimes are ever prosecuted. Many of Soto鈥檚 colleagues, who wear masks to avoid detection when they investigate crime scenes, are fearful for their lives and have left the force. Some have been murdered. He says of his workday: 鈥淵ou always go out with a prayer on your lips.鈥�
Schwarz doesn鈥檛 make it clear why Ju谩rez is ground zero in the drug wars. Is it because of its close proximity to the US border? He also doesn鈥檛 indict the buyers in the United States who are overwhelmingly the chief consumers of the illegal narcotics coming out of Mexico. His concern is more human-scaled, and his bravery in making this film in some ways matches Soto鈥檚 steadfastness in the face of grave danger.
Interviewed in the film, Ju谩rez journalist Sandra Rodriguez offers up this grim summation: 鈥淭hat these people represent the ideal of success, impunity, and limitless power is symptomatic of how defeated we are as a society.鈥� Grade: A- (Rated R for grisly graphic images of disturbing violent content, drug material, language, and brief nudity.)
