The young victims of drug gangs are filmed from behind

A WOLFPACK CALLED ERNESTO
Director Everardo González
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆☆

SPIRALLING violence linked to drug gangs in Mexico has seen more than 30,000 killed annually since 2018. Its victims are wide and varied and are not exclusive to those who either use or sell drugs. The cartels operate in a country with deep-rooted poverty and inequality, and the state itself is corrupted by the power of criminal gangs.

Everardo González’s documentary tells the stories of children who are groomed into become gangsters. It is an access-all-areas piece, filmed by using just the backs of the heads of interviewees and never revealing their names. It is, at first, unsettling but we should not be comfortable watching a story of children coerced into killing and dealing drugs.

The interviewees are candid and there is a sense of the cheapness of life: they are groomed from the age of nine by older boys offering them computer games, a bit of work running packages about, and soon are caught up ion a world they cannot escape from. The killing is downplayed, an everyday occurrence, and a fate they feel will inevitably be their own.

And the gang life offers them plenty. They explain how it becomes a family they cannot escape, even if they wanted to.

The US stalks their experience like a behemoth. It lies to the north like a life-sucking monster. Refugees flee to escape violent crime. Drugs also flow to the US, while guns come back across the border. The film makes it clear that many of the arms on the city streets were from US military sources, often sold on by police officers.

This powerful, enlightening and important film doesn’t need to overdo any of the drama or despair, and also creates well-rounded and understandable human beings. Non-judgmental and intelligent, it is first class journalism.

These stolen childhoods create a vicious circle for the next generation.

We follow two youngsters who get drunk and then on a motorbike fire off rounds at a gang who murdered one of their fathers. They know their revenge will only lead to further bloodshed, but there is seemingly no other path for them to travel. By hearing their testimonies, it feels like salvation for a sadly small number of the thousands coerced and groomed into a life of vicious crime.