Statues of La Sante Muerte, or the Saint of Death, on display in Juárez. In one scene of Narco Cultura, one of the film's main subjects seeks out a blessing from La Sante Muerte before taking a trip to Sinaloa, the stronghold of the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico. (Reuters)
1623, 2754, and 3622. These are how many murders took place in Juárez, Mexico, in 2008, 2009, and 2010.
18, 13, and 5. These are how many murders took place in neighboring El Paso, an American city within walking distance of Juárez, during the same years.
This is what viewers learn during the first ten minutes of Narco Cultura, a documentary by Shaul Schwarz about the effects of drug trafficking on Mexico’s northern border. And then the scene cuts to a band playing what sounds like polka music. Singers decked out in Polo shirts and aviators carry AK-47s, belting out lines like:
Sending reinforcements to decapitate
El Macho leads wearing a bullet-proof vest
Bazooka in hand with experience
Death is within
If you don’t understand the Spanish lyrics, the music sounds like it could be playing at a bar mitzvah or your grandma’s 80th birthday party.
This is the power of the film: juxtaposing banality with tragedy, clubs and parties and music videos with decapitations and gunshots and body bags. We follow crime scene investigators, who are powerless to stop the murders. We hear from mothers of the victims, who are powerless to protect their sons. We see drug traffickers, who are totally unapologetic about the $100,000 worth of crystal meth laid out in bags on a kitchen table.