Review of Miss Bala (2011) by Eric T — 08 Apr 2012

When Laura Guerrero ends up at the wrong place, wrong time in Tijuana, she lives one of the most terrifying nightmares one can imagine in the clutches of a major drug/crime syndicate. Director Gerardo Naranjo masterfully conceives this Kafka-esque scenario where all reason is frustrated, and the route to salvation for Laura is impenetrable--like quicksand, the harder she tries to pull herself from enslavement by syndicate mastermind and perfectly amoral Lino, the further she is dragged down.

The conflicts between the syndicate, the Mexican authorities, and the DEA are nonsensical to both Laura and to the observer, and yet she is caught in the middle of them, running errands for Lino that seem to have very little net effect and are intentionally not explained, creating an absurdist portrait of the meaninglessness of the drug trade and drug war.

While Mexico may have emerged from the third-world country label, this film is very much in the tradition of third cinema, addressing the struggles and social ills of an emerging country to stabilize itself and progress.

Mexican superstars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna may have just spent a little time screwing around, spoofing telenovelas and westerns ("Casa de mi padre"), but they certainly did right when they threw their weight behind this masterpiece.