Violence and the Victim: Narco Conflict in Amat Escalante’s Heli (2013)

• In Event: The Intermediality of Memorialisation: Inflections and Reflections in Mexican Visual Culture - Part I

Abstract

This paper will discuss the issue of the drug war in Mexican cinema, by focusing specifically on the theoretical concerns with violence, and their application to a reading of Amat Escalante’s Heli (2013). In this, his third feature film, Escalante positions the role of the victim at the center of his analysis of the narco problem, and by doing so he engages in a dynamic of representation that embraces the concerns governing a notion of victimhood and political audibility. Crucial to our understanding of the imperatives at the core of this conflict, is an acknowledgement of the role that the visual and vision itself plays in the cognitive processing of traumatic events. Here my analyses will draw on the notions of both the horrific and horrorism, so as to determine the spectator’s engagement with and detachment from visualized forms of physical grievance. Although not focusing on one specific cartel, the events in Heli are governed by the consequences of the narco conflict, which subsequently act as a catalyst for the violent incidents that tear the family apart. The fragility of human existence is evident when cartel violence penetrates the domestic realm, and takes hostage several of the family members. The event marks a shift in the narrative pace and tone, exposing the extent of the violent social environment in which the family live, and the precarious nature of their lives.

Author

• Miriam Haddu, Royal Holloway, University of London