When Heli premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, it was met with outcry. Depressing. Uninvolved. Gratuitous. These were just a few of the ways critics objected to its depiction of life and violence. Certainly entering into Heli means entering into a world where puppies’ necks are snapped and genitals are set on fire in front of kids more interested in playing video games. Yet if 12 Years a Slave’s look at antiquated American history is marked as a film that people feel they should see, then Amat Escalante’s new film of what-is-happening-as-you-read-this in Mexico certainly stands as a film people must see.

Its plot is simple, focusing on Heli’s (Armando Espitia) attempt to hold what is left of his family together after his young sister Estela (Andrea Vergara) unintentionally exposes them to the Mexican underworld of civil corruption. 

From its opening prologue it is evident why Escalante won Best Director at Cannes last year. His camera work is like an infusion of Paul Thomas Anderson and Jean-Pierre Melville, events unravel as characters step in and out of the static frame, and the audience is repeatedly made accessory to the illicit events that take place in the confines of a car, from kidnapping to sexual advances.

The misguided objections to the film at Cannes are owing to a misunderstanding of the intentions of the film. Its purpose is not to provide an exposition on drug trafficking and corruption rampant in Mexico. Rather, its purpose is to provide an insight into the lives of those unfortunate enough to be abandoned in the cesspit of drug trafficking and society corrupted by money and cowardice to speak out.

The youth are rendered vacant by angst, swallowed up by the empty badlands, with a future no brighter than the LED lighting of the car factory that employs them. The personal relationships between these characters have the atmosphere of The Last Picture Show transposed to Mexico, but the war isn’t in Korea, it’s all around them. The desperation of this place means there’s no time to flirt with Cybil Shepherd, you must follow the traditions of your culture – once you leave high school you must get married, and have a child, and live with your parents, and work – but their religious roots are forgotten. Herein lies the detachment that pervades the film; the economic photography articulates the message that this is a society living on the tip of nothingness. 

But it has not yet reached nothingness. There is still some hope left, found in the smaller details of the film; a man wearing the curliest cowboy boots you’ll ever see, the machismo act of struggling to bench press your girlfriend to look cool. Rare moments though they are, Escalante is nonetheless signalling to us that Mexico isn’t beyond redemption. Grace can be found in the abounding acts of the devil; we just have to work out how to hold on to it.

Amat Escalante will be attending a Director Q&A of Heli this Saturday (24th) at the Arts Picturehouse Cambridge. He will also be interviewed by Varsity this week.