The
documentary I chose to summarize was Cartel Land, directed by Matthew Heineman.
The reason I chose this documentary was because I felt like I had some sort of
background knowledge on the violent crimes happening in Mexico.
The scene that stunned me was the interview with Nicolás Sierra Santana. In his interview he mentioned how he was one of the
leaders of the vigilante group los Autodefensas, a leader of the Rural Defense
Force, and also a member of Los Viagras. It was an eye opener to see how
corrupt the police force must be, to have a cartel members be involved.
It surprised me to see that this is
the kind of corruption taking place in Mexico. The documentary tells stories of
some on the crimes the cartel commits and it honestly scares me to the core.
Mostly because my family and I are from Michoacán, where the documentary takes
place. Now I have that constant paranoia every time one of my family members
fly out there.
As I said before, I had some sort of
background knowledge of what was going on in Mexico. However, I never had the
full details. After seeing this documentary, I question how corrupted the
government must be. As well as what is the president doing in this situation? I’ve
heard of Mexico being corrupted, but I didn’t imagine it like this.
Some of the problematic concepts I saw in
the film was obviously, how are the cartel members able to have positions in
the police force? During the film, there are scenes where the President of
Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, speaks on behalf of the violence. However, none of the
citizens take him seriously. I question what is the President doing about the
crimes and why do Mexicans hate him so much? One of the main characters in the
film was Dr. José Manuel Mireles who was the
one who started the vigilante group Los Autodefensas. He was put in prison for weapon
charges but some believe the government put him there in a way to shut him up. In addition, I would like to do further
research on human drug trafficker’s in the border, since the documentary also
touches base on that.
