''Narco Cultura'' is a 2013 documentary film about the Mexican drug war in

Ciudad Juárez Ciudad Juárez ( ; ''Juarez City''. ) is the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is commonly referred to as Juárez and was known as El Paso del Norte (''The Pass of the North'') until 1888. Juárez is the seat of the Ju� ...

, directed by Shaul Schwarz. The two main focal points of the movie are Edgar Quintero of the narcocorrido band Bukanas de Culiacán and crime scene investigator Richi Soto.

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 89% approval rating based on 4 reviews, with an average ranking of 7.6/10. On Metacritic, the film have a score of 74 out of a 100 by 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". '' The Austin Chronicle''s Marc Savlov awarded the film with 4 out of 5 stars, while Tomas Hachard of ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...

'' gave it 3 out of 4. Writing for the '' National Catholic Reporter'', Sr. Rose Pacatte wrote "''Narco Cultura'' is about a "disturbingly glorified conflict" that no one is paying attention to and how pop culture functions in society and in commerce. For people who care, it is a film not to be missed". Peter Rainer of '' The Christian Science Monitor'' called the documentary as "powerful", adding that the film "gets inside the world of two men who, in very different ways, inhabit this horror". According to Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of '' The A.V. Club'', the film is " th an unflinching record of Mexico's drug war and an investigation of how violence becomes unreal and glamorized". Following its screening at the

2013 Sundance Film Festival The 2013 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 17, 2013, until January 27, 2013, in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ogden, Utah, and Sundance, Utah. The festival had 1,830 volunteers. Films A r ...

, Justin Lowe of '' The Hollywood Reporter'' said "This issue-based journalism piece yields diminishing returns the deeper it digs".

Stephen Holden Stephen Holden (born July 18, 1941) is an American writer, poet, and music and film critic. Biography Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963. He worked as a photo editor, staff writer, and eventually be ...

of '' The New York Times'' was of the same view, he added "There is nothing here that hasn't been more thoroughly documented in other studies of the drug-related crime that grips Juárez". Geoff Berkshire of '' Variety'' praised the film for being an "eye-opening examination" and for "its unsettling pop-culture side effects", calling ''Narco Cultura'' "overwhelming ndabsorbing".

References

External links

* 2013 documentary films 2013 films Documentary films about the illegal drug trade Films about Mexican drug cartels Mexican drug war Mexican documentary films Ciudad Juárez 2010s English-language films 2010s Mexican films {{2010s-Mexico-film-stub