Heli (2013)

Directed by: Amat Escalante
Country: Mexico / others

Movie Review: Part of the Latin-American new wave cinema, “Heli”, is a powerful film set in Mexico, that starts with a memorable scene in which two harmed men are taken in the backside of a pickup truck and one of them is brutally hanged in a bridge. The story then shifts back in time to makes us get to know Heli, a car factory employer who shares house with his dad, wife, baby daughter, and younger sister, Estela. The latter is in love with a young police cadet who wants to marry her and runaway from small town, but choosing the wrong way to do it. Well informed, he steals a couple of cocaine packets, propriety of an unscrupulous gang, that were hidden in a remote place. This action will change the life of everyone, since the drug was placed inside the external water tank at Heli’s home. The visceral scenes of violence will stay in your head for a while, and to tell the truth, the film never lost meaning and was quite penetrating till the end. An adjacent subplot, regarding Heli’s marital crisis, ends up oddly related to the main one, and even here, we cannot stop being curious or get disarmed by the occurrences. “Heli” is an agonizingly depressive film that gives us a prospect of ruinous future for its characters through well-established frames. Helmer Amat Escalante won Palm Spring’s Cine-Latino award and was considered best director at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.