Narco Cultura
Directed byShaul Schwarz
Produced byJay Van Hoy
Lars Knudsen
Todd Hagopian
Edited byBryan Chang
Jay Arthur Sterrenberg
Music byJeremy Turner
Production
company
Parts & Labor
Release date
  • November 22, 2013 (2013-11-22)
Running time
88 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$145,088[1]

Narco Cultura is a 2013 documentary film about the Mexican drug war in Ciudad Juárez, 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.[2][3][4]

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.[5] On Metacritic, the film have a score of 74 out of a 100 by 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[6]

The Austin Chronicle's Marc Savlov awarded the film with 4 out of 5 stars,[7] while Tomas Hachard of Slant Magazine gave it 3 out of 4.[8]

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".[9]

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".[10]

According to Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club, the film is "[b]oth an unflinching record of Mexico's drug war and an investigation of how violence becomes unreal and glamorized".[11]

Following its screening at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, Justin Lowe of The Hollywood Reporter said "This issue-based journalism piece yields diminishing returns the deeper it digs".[12]

Stephen Holden 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".[13]

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 [and] absorbing".[14]

References

  1. ^ "Narco Cultura (2013)". The Numbers. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  2. ^ Turan, Kenneth (December 5, 2013). "Review: 'Narco Cultura' looks at Juarez murders, narcocorridos". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  3. ^ O'Sullivan, Michael (December 5, 2013). "'Narco Cultura' movie review". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  4. ^ Jenkins, Mark (November 21, 2013). "A Foray Into The Blood-Soaked 'Cultura' of Mexico's Cartels". NPR. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  5. ^ "Narco Cultura (2012)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  6. ^ "Narco Cultura (2013)". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  7. ^ Savlov, Marc (December 6, 2013). "Narco Cultura". Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  8. ^ Hachard, Tomas (November 18, 2013). "Review: Narco Cultura". Slant Magazine.
  9. ^ Pacatte, Rose (December 11, 2013). "'Narco Cultura' explores the meaning of the war on drugs". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  10. ^ Rainer, Peter (December 13, 2013). "'Narco Cultura' examines the glamorization through music of Mexico's drug lords". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  11. ^ Vishnevetsky, Ignatiy (November 21, 2013). "Narco Cultura explores Mexican drug cartels and those who glorify them". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  12. ^ Lowe, Justin (January 24, 2013). "Narco Cultura: Sundance Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  13. ^ Holden, Stephen (November 21, 2013). "Singing of the Cartels, and Investigating Them". The New York Times. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  14. ^ Berkshire, Geoff (January 24, 2013). "Narco Cultura". Variety.

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