Modern Mexican Cinema has attracted a number of plaudits, producing prominent works by Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Iuarritu while making international stars of Salma Hayek, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. The latter two, having set up Canana Production Company, bring us Miss Bala - a film loosely based on real-life events in the brutal Mexican War on Drugs and one to surely make another South American star of writer/director Gerado Naranjo.
His story has, at its centre, a relatively unremarkable plot. Stephanie Sigman plays Laura Guerrero, a young woman from Tijuana looking to make the most of her looks at the states beauty pageant when her witness to a violent attack on a nightclub by the local drug cartel throws her into the dark world of drug trafficking. As the lone survivor of the attack and crucially having seen the gang prepare for the onslaught she becomes a prized asset and mistakenly turns to a corrupt officer in search of her friend only to be turned over to the ruthless gang.
She is instantly plunged further into the gang’s plans and forced into assisting them to ensure the safety of her Father and young brother. Soon intercepted by the DEA, Laura’s phone is taken and used to carry out a siege at the cartels hideout – news that filters through as they are holed up in the Guerrero family home. Her family is allowed to leave in return of her co-operation; carrying goods over the US border, passing on received information and suffering violent and sexual attacks. Having been kicked out of the pageant she is re-admitted, presumably after pressure from gang leader Lino Valdez (menacingly played by Noe Hernandez), and forced to maintain a Miss Baja composure and ignore her ordeal, the convincing host joyfully ad-libbing “Overcome with emotion. She fills the stage with her tears and her beauty.”
In other filmmaker’s hands, this plot could easily become a formulaic action romp but in Naranjo’s assured approach Miss Bala never threatens to become a jumpy, explosive shoot-em-up soundtracked by crashes and an ominous score. In fact there is no score at all and the action sequences are few and far between but extremely natural and made all the more gripping by the focussed camera work. When Laura inadvertedly drives into the middle of a clash between between the cartel and law enforcers we are not whizzed around the battlefield with quick edits and jump-cuts but stay in the car crouching under the wheel with Laura as bullets fly over our heads. Similarly, the lights are turned off when Valdez first abuses her, making like a true horror of the unseen.
Naranjo’s delicate positioning of the camera and the repeated use of panning and tracking creates a gentle flow through scenes and establishes a welcome slower pace in the film, unusual for one of its genre. Shots are held with one camera as cut-aways and multiple angles don’t feature and car journeys place us in the car as a passenger as scenes play out in front of us – the unnoticed character in the film.
This is not to say Miss Bala is any less thrilling for this, the reverse is in fact true with suspense gradually being built as the ordeal is played out at a speed we can imagine suffering. At one point Laura hides under a bed awaiting to see who emerges from the groups attack on a politician. From out vantage point all we can see are bodies on the floor and the feet of anyone to walk in the room. Having earlier received an ankle injury Lino has sustained a pronounced limp which here acts like the ticking clock inside Captain Hook’s crocodile nemesis as we see his feet hobble into the room. It’s as effective a technique as anything found in a faster-paced heist.
It’s startling to see how many lives can get embroiled and caught up these seemingly lawless pockets of northern Mexico (before the end credits we learn 36,000 have died as result of drug wars between 2006-2011) and the impact it has on neighbourhoods, not to mention finances (drug trafficking in Mexico alone has generated 25 billion dollars) but it’s Naranjo’s fluid camera work and direction that sets it apart from other, similar narratives in an altogether more impacting way.
Reviewer: Matthew Walsh
Release Date UK: Out Now
Directed: Gerardo Naranjo
Cast: Stephanie Sigman, Noe Hernandez, Irene Azuela
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