Heli

Heli works in a car factory in Mexico and lives in one house with his wife, their baby, his father and his twelve year old sister Estela. Estela is involved with a young police cadet in training; the boy promises to run away with her and marry her. To manage it he keeps back some of a seized drug shipment and leaves it at Heli's house. Heli finds it and destroys it. The next day armed men come to the house. Amat Escalante writes and directs. The film won best director at the Cannes film festival in 2013. The subject is not the drug trade but an ordinary family falling into it and being unable to get out. None of the characters belongs to the criminal world. Its most argued about element is a scene of violence; the narrative shows torture at length, unbroken and without aestheticising it. That scene caused argument at the festival and became the most discussed thing about the film. Escalante's manner rests on a fixed camera, long takes and scenes without music; the material is harsh while the telling is cold. Its second subject is institutions: the police, the army and the failure of missing person procedures are shown directly. Most of the cast are not professionals. Who it is for: viewers who follow Latin American realism and hard festival cinema. Who it is not for: it is extremely violent, there is no hope, and some scenes are difficult to endure.