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Transcript of Borderland
THE NARCOCINEMA ISSUE MARIO ALMADA • JORGE REYNOSO • CHRYSLER 300 • NARCOCORRIDOS
№ 26 SPRING 2012
THE NARCOCI N E MA I SSUE MARIO ALMADA • JORGE REYNOSO • CHRYSLER 300 • NARCOCORRIDOS
INDEX
9 TALES OF NARCO CULTURE
12 THE CULT OF SANTA MUERTA
23 FASHION: POINTY BOOTS
24 THE DRUG CROONERS
35 WHO LOST THE WAR ON DRUGS
41 THE WAR NEXT DOOR
14 JORGE REYNOSO
15 JESUS MALVERDE
16 MARIO ALMADA
18 NARCOCINEMA
26 EL CHRYSLER 300
Bijan Berahimi
Bernardo Loyola
Chris Burnett
Pedro Lavin
David Davis
F E A T U R E S
Have you made any movies lately? I just came back from Dallas. I was shooting a video there.
How many movies have you made?I’ve starred as the lead in well over 300 films shot on 35 mm. That’s just counting films shot on film. I’m not counting videohomes. I’ve probably acted in more than 1,000 of those.
What’s the difference between working in 35 mm and in videohomes?It’s very different. The big movies are shot over months and videos are made in six days. That’s why I’ve man-aged to act in so many movies.
And do you usually play the good guy or the bad guy?Usually I’m the hero: an avenger, a cop, a sergeant, a sheriff. I’ve played priests and pretty much everything else. Except for a gay guy. Not that. If I played that, it wouldn’t even be believable. My characters always fight against violence and against the drug traffickers. Always. The only time I played the role of a drug traf-ficker was in The Band of the Red Car.
Who watches your movies?Mostly the working-class people, but very often I run into women from the super-rich neighborhood of Lo-mas de Chapultepec and they tell me, “Mr. Almada, I watched one of your movies on TV last night. They are great. Please keep making them.” But the main audi-ence is the working class in Mexico, the US, and South and Central America.
Is it true that a lot of these movies are shot in the US?We’ve shot a lot of great movies in Brownsville, Texas. The Band of the Red Car was shot between Brownsville and Matamoros, Mexico.
And is that because the millions of Mexicans living in the US are really the market for your movies?People there really like Mexican songs, but they also like the stories about the border, about illegal im-migrants, and about drug trafficking. Movies like The Death of the Jackal and The Revenge of the Jackal were huge hits. We also shot those in Brownsville.
You just mentioned Mexican songs. There’s a very close relationship between narcocorridos and the videohome industry, right?There are so many of these songs. There are lots of characters who have been very famous, like bandits and such, and eventually someone writes a corrido about them. And based on that corrido, a movie gets made. And they are always very successful, because they are based on a song that’s already well known. For example, The Band of the Red Car. That started as a corrido that was made famous by Los Tigres del Norte, one of the biggest bands in Mexico. It tells the story of four friends who get killed. They were carrying 100 kilos of coke in the tires of the car. The movie came out of that song. You can see it all in the movie. We take the tires apart and all that.
Now, I’ve heard that some of these movies are fi-nanced by…By drug traffickers? Well, yes. It might be true. I’ve nev-er looked into it. I have a lot of producer friends who wear gold chains and diamonds, but I don’t try to find out if they are drug traffickers or not, because they’re nice. They’re good people.
Have you ever met any big drug dealers? Any capos?I met Rafael Caro Quintero in the 80s in Guadalajara. He invited us to his table at a restaurant and I had drinks with him. He was a very charming man, a very generous man who did a lot for his people. He built schools. We made Operation: Marijuana about the beginnings of Caro Quintero, when he had those plantations every-where. He got into something illegal and he ended up in jail, but he was a good man.
MARIO ALMADATHE JOHN WAYNE OF MEXICO
BORDERLAND
If there’s one person who represents this industry, it’s Mario Almada. He’s kind of like the John Wayne of Mex-ico—a total legend. He’s 86 years old and he’s still making movies. He actu-ally holds the Guinness World Record for the living actor who’s appeared in the most movies. We visited him at his house in Cuernavaca.
Photography & Words Chris Burnett
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
JESÚS MALVERDE, sometimes known as the “generous bandit,” “angel of the poor,” or
the “narco-saint,” is a folklore hero in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. He is celebrated as a
folk saint by some in Mexico and the United States, particularly among those involved in
drug trafficking.
The existence of Malverde a.k.a ‘El Rey de Sinaloa’ is not historically verified,but
according to local legends he was a bandit killed by the auth0orities on May 3, 1909.
Accounts of his life vary—sometimes he was a railway worker, while others claim he was a
construction worker. There is also no agreement on the way he died, being hanged
or shot.
Since Malverde’s supposed death, he has earned a Robin Hood-type image, making
him popular among Sinaloa’s poor highland residents. The outlaw image has caused him
to be adopted as the “patron saint” of the region’s illegal drug trade, and the press have
thus dubbed him “the narco-saint.” However, his intercession is also sought by those
with troubles of various kinds, and a number of supposed miracles have been locally
attributed to him, including personal healings and blessings.
The story of Jesus Malverde takes place during the reign of dictator Porfirio Diaz
1877-1911. The Porfiriato, as the era is known, was a time when big business, especially
foreign-owned big business, was encouraged above all else. Diaz saw himself as the
rest of the world saw him: as Mexico’s modernizer. Yet progress passed by millions of
Mexicans, who remained as impoverished as ever. As the century turned, the country
fermented with the social anarchy that would explode in the Mexican Revolution. The
hills and back roads of Mexico were alive with banditry, some of whom would become
folk heroes to the country’s poor.
THE OTHER JESUSJESUS MALVERDE
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Words Pedro LavinPhotography Armando Martinez
So how much time and money does it actually take to make these movies?The costs are between $40,000 and $50,000 for a well-made movie. We ask some-one to write the script, which is done in three or four days. There are some great Mexican writers. So in a week and a half, I have the preproduction of the movie ready. After that, we have two weeks to shoot it. So in five weeks, the movie is already on the market. I’ve made as many as 26 movies in a year.
What do you think of the Mexican film industry? What’s the difference between the mainstream artsy Mexican films and the kind of movies that you make?I think there are some great movies being made today, but I also think that they are made for people who can afford to watch them. They are not really films for the majority of the people, because the working class doesn’t have access to them. First, there are no movie theaters in the small towns and rural areas, and second, I think that the themes they talk about are a bit off from where they should be, in terms of culture and values. I think those movies are too risqué. I think they’ve gone too far, but they win awards and compete at the major film festivals. The kinds of movies we make are very different.
JORGE REYNOSOTHE TRADITIONAL BAD-GUY
BORDERLAND
As opposed to Mario Almada, Jorge usually plays the most badass of bad guys. However, nowadays Jorge is more then just an actor. He is a Narcocinema film entrepreneur, di-rector, and producer. When we met him in Mexico City he told us that he was busy starting the produc-tion of his very own hot sauce: Rico, Picante y Sabroso, el Sabor de Jorge Reynoso.
Words Bijan Berahimi Photography Crystal Yi
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
How so?This style of action movie that we make today, based on news stories, about the mafia, was started by me, and I made them popular by working with the record labels and by including popular corridos in them. People actu-ally know me as “The Lord of the Guns,” because I’ve killed lots of people… in my movies. Most of the movies I’ve made are about the mafia. These movies are very well received by the Mexicans living in the US, because they can relate to the characters in them, who are very respected, and loved by people that live in small towns, and also by the musical groups that sing corridos.
So you are saying that Mexicans celebrate their drug dealers?What happens is that drug traffickers in Mexico come from the countryside. They are people who make their way out of poverty. Once they succeed, they do good things for their hometowns. They build schools and hospitals, they create jobs, and, obviously, people love them. There’s even a patron saint of the drug traffickers. His name is Jesús Malverde and his shrine is in Culiacán, Sinaloa. People go there and they leave candles and they sing songs for him. It’s a fascinating culture, and it’s the reality of Mexico.
Have you ever met any big drug dealers while making your movies?I’ve had the opportunity to meet many of them. In fact, we’ve made some important movies with these people where they’ve worked with us. They’ve been with us, but obviously I was never a snitch and that’s why I’m still alive. I’ve never betrayed the trust of any of them, who always gave us and continue to give us their friendship. The first movie that I made about the mafia was called The Mafia Trembles, a movie made about Rafael Caro Quintero, who was a very important drug trafficker in Mexico. We made La Mafia 1, La Mafia 2, and La Mafia 3. They were highly successful.
Do the police ever come and ask you where you get the information to write your movies?It has happened in the past. The State Department would call me to ask me if I knew where such and such person was hiding. I would answer them, “You should know where he is. You are the police, I’m just an actor.”
Did you start out making mafia movies, or were there other genres for you first?In the beginning we started making movies about the illegal immigrants. More than making movies, we were making an homage to those people who make it to the “other side” despite all the difficulties. We feel very proud of them. Then we started making movies about the mafia. Although it was somewhat risky because the Mexican mafia is the second- or third-most powerful in the world, I continued making them, often based on narcocorridos. The record labels would approach us and give us songs, and we would make movies about the songs that were playing on the radio. We still do that today. People used to tell me that I looked like a mafioso and that I should play that kind of character, so
that’s what I do, and I play those characters with a lot of pride and dignity.
It’s interesting that a lot of these movies are Mexican productions but are shot in the US. Why shoot there instead of Mexico?We get a lot of support from the Mexicans who live there. People know us and they get very excited when they see us there. When you shoot in the places where they live, like Houston, Dallas, California, or Chicago, the people get very involved. Also, the mayors of many American towns are of Mexican origin, and they help us a lot.
Where do you sell the majority of your movies?Our main market is the Mexicans living in the United States. Piracy was hitting us really hard, but we realized that if we sold lots of DVDs of our movies at super-markets at very accessible prices we could make a profit. Walmart has more than 2,000 stores in the US. If we sell five copies at each store, we are talking about 10,000 copies, and they can be sold in just a few days. At Walmart they place our DVDs next to Mexican food products. For example, you can find a movie starring Jorge Reynoso next to some delicious enchiladas. We put four or five movies on a single DVD. We also sell our movies to TV stations in California, Texas, and Illinois. You give the people movies they want, with songs, with a beautiful actress, a handsome guy, and a killer, and they will buy them.
You’ve mentioned narcocorridos. It’s very interesting how this music has changed over the years.Corridos were songs originally from the Mexican Revolution, originally from the beginning of the last century. They would make songs for the fighters and heroes like Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata or the women fighting with them on the front lines. In recent times, this kind of song is made for and about important characters of the Mexican cartels—dignifying them, and making them into larger-than-life heroes. People in the Mexican mafia love this kind of music.
A lot of these kind of movies are based on popular narcocorridos, but I know that in the past three years, there have been over 25 violent killings of musicians, like Valentín Elizalde and Sergio Gómez, attributed to the drug cartels, supposedly for singing in the wrong territory or about the wrong people. Do you ever get in trouble for making a movie based on the “wrong” song?The song gives you the synopsis for the movie and, based on that, we make the adaptation. But of course, you have to ask for permission. You need to have good relations with these people so you don’t get in trouble. Because if you make changes to the story that they don’t like, then you will have some problems. God bless, we’ve always done things the way they should be done.
There are a lot of recurring stars in your movies, but it seems that non-actors play a lot of the characters too.The scripts are written in such a way that everybody can participate. Like the strippers, who are always great with us. They are awesome girls. The security guards, the cops, the drunk guys, the hit men, and all the people who are in that kind of environment always work with us. What you see is what you get. The prostitute is a prostitute, the cop is a cop, and the drug dealer is a drug dealer.
BORDERLAND
IF YOU MAKE CHANGES TO THE STORY THAT THEY DON’T LIKE, THEN YOU WILL HAVE SOME PROBLEMS.
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Mexico is famous for many things: tequila, a glori-ous cuisine, gracious people, beautiful beaches, and perhaps puking spring breakers. However, in the last year, the beleaguered nation is getting more attention than usual for its vicious drug cartels. Mexico is considered the superhighway of drugs entering North America. It supplies most of the coke, meth, marijuana, and poppy deriva-tives consumed in the United States, and today the Mexican drug trade is a $100-billion-a-year industry.
In the last decade the drug culture in mexico has spread drastically and it seems as though drugs as a culture has permeated every part of mexican society. Mexico now has thier own patron saint of drug trafficing, narco corridos which are songs about being a drug trafficker and then thier is narco cinema.
NARCO CINEMAWHEN B-MOVIES MEET THE MEXICAN DRUG WAR
Words Bernardo Loyola
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Photography Fabio Cuttica November 210
For over 40 years, a hugely active B-movie industry has
been producing super-low-budget films about drug dealers,
bad cops, corrupt politicians, trucks, and prostitutes, cater-
ing mostly to the blue collar back home and the millions of
Mexicans living in the US. In Mexico, this industry is called “vid-
eohome” because the movies go straight to video. If you go to
a video-rental place in East LA, you’ll find one copy of Amores
perros, but it will be surrounded by hundreds of other movies
like Sinaloa, Land of Men; A Violent Man; The Dead Squad; Her
Price Was Just a Few Dollars; Coca Inc.; I Got Screwed by
the Gringos; Weapons, Robbery, and Death; and Robbery
in Tijuana.
This industry is frowned upon by embarrassed and
ashamed middle- and upper-class Mexicans, and many people
we tried to interview about it felt offended by the fact that we
were even interested in narco cinema. A movie like Chrysler
300 sold thousands and thousands of DVDs last year, but
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
people in the trendy neighborhoods of Mexico City have
never heard of it even though it was playing on every TV in
the working-class areas. As Hugo Villa, a former official at the
Mexican Institute of Cinematography, told us, “This is not a
surprise when you realize that only 18 percent of the popula-
tion in Mexico can afford to go to see movies in the theaters.”
The reality is that videohomes are a far truer reflection of the
tastes of Mexico than the kind of stuff that makes Frenchmen
pee champagne into their tux pants at Cannes.
These low-budget action flicks are often based on violent
stories from local newspapers. They can be written, produced,
and released mere weeks after the stories are published. They
are also often based on myths and legends about the all-
mighty drug cartels from the northwest region of Mexico and
stories about Mexicans crossing the border. Also, hilariously,
tons of narcocinema movies revolve around cars or trucks. In
“THIS IS NOT A SURPRISE WHEN YOU REALIZE THAT
ONLY 18 PERCENT OF THE POPULATION IN MEXICO CAN
AFFORD TO GO TO SEE MOVIES IN THE THEATERS.”
any store that carries videohomes, you can easily find movies
like The Black Hummer, The White Ram, The Red Durango, and
two of the most famous classics of the genre, The Gray Truck
and The Band of the Red Car.
In the mainstream Mexican film industry, it is rare to find
a movie that eventually gets a sequel. There’s no Y tu mamá
también Part 2. But in the videohome industry, any successful
movie will become a franchise, so you have Dos plebes 5, An
Expensive Gift 4, Chrysler 300 Part 3, and so on. Most sequels
are revenge stories based on the original movies.
A few decades ago, these movies used to be westerns
or straight action movies, but over the last two decades, the
focus has shifted to drug trafficking. Mexico is the number two
producer of both marijuana and poppies in the Americas, the
majority of meth that seeps into the States is being made in
Mexico, and the whole country is basically a superhighway
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
for US-bound cocaine. Drug trafficking is a $100-billion-a-year
business, and about 30 percent of that is estimated to go into
paying off the government and the police.
Today, the narco wars going on in Mexico are out of
control. Every day on the news you hear about shootings,
executions, beheadings, and corruption. But it’s not only the
cartels that are at war with each other. The current govern-
ment has tried to stop the cartels, effectively militarizing entire
areas of the country. This has sparked even more violence. So
we have the cartels fighting the government, the government
fighting the cartels, the cartels fighting each other, brutal
killings every single day, and a group of dedicated workhorse
filmmakers turning the whole thing into video faster than you
can say arriba.
DRUG BALLADS / WORDS BY MITCH COX
NARCOCORRIDOSTHE MUSIC AND THIER FALLEN DRUG CROONERS
The music’s appeal is tied to its association with danger.
In that sense, the narcocorrido has something in common
with 1990s gangsta rap, complete with the fast and ferocious
lifestyles of its performers. Many balladeers receive money from
drug lords to write paeans about their exploits; some are paid to
perform at gangs’ private parties in secret hideouts. But being
one gangster’s favorite singer can make you a target for his ri-
vals: nearly a dozen musicians have been killed since 2006. That
only adds to the narcocorrido’s mystique among its fans.
The ballads have deep roots; Mexicans have been singing
about drug runners since the 1930s. But the new wave of nar-
cocorrido is more gruesome than ever, and it portrays the drug
lord as a hard-partying, daredevil Robin Hood fighting a corrupt
system.
Nobody so far has been daft enough to ask the drug lords
publicly what they make of the growing popularity of narcocor-
ridos in the U.S. But they probably love it. Howard Campbell,
an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at El Paso,
says the cartels regard the ballads as useful propaganda. “The
cartels are interested in two things, power and intimidation, and
they’re trying to influence public opinion to their side,” he says.
The songs can also serve as martial music: when the Sinaloa
cartel tried to muscle into Mexico’s Nuevo León state in 2006,
gang members jammed police radio scanners to play odes to
their boss “El Chapo” Guzmán. The effect was like ominous
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Everybody knows about Mexico’s bloody drug cartel wars, the narcotics mafia, executions and the state’s of-ten inadequate attempts to curb the menace. But did you know about the controversial genre of music that all this has spawned? Taking cues from old Mexican folk corrido songs and mixing them with the drug culture in Mexico Narcocorridos was born.
music welling up in a TV western at the approaching shadow of a
gunslinger.
No wonder cartel bosses want balladeers of their own. Few
minstrels will admit it publicly, but it is common for a drug lord to
hire a musician to compose a song praising his bravery and cunning.
As one popular singer confided to us, “I can make about $20,000
a song, and if they like it, they’ll also tip me with a pickup truck
or something like that.” Says another young corrido singer, Erik
Estrada, from the Sinaloan capital of Culiacán: “I’ve been asked to
write songs about these things, and I can’t say no. I’m a singer, and
that’s what I do.” He adds, “And besides, I have family down there. I
have to be careful.”
Despite the risks, these are high times for narco balladeers.
There’s no dearth of material: between the Mexican government’s
four-year war awgainst the drug lords and the many intercartel
battles, it’s easy to find a bloody tale to set to music. But competi-
tion is fierce; songs have to get out as quickly as a tabloid headline.
On July 29, Edgar Quintero, the Los Angeles — born singer of the
band Los BuKnas de Culiacán, was only half listening to a Tijuana
radio station when he heard a live broadcast from a wealthy
suburb in Guadalajara where more than 100 troops had cornered
a fearsome drug lord of the Sinaloa cartel, Ignacio “The King of
Crystal” Coronel. Famed for his jewel-encrusted pistols, Coronel
died gangster-style, firing from both barrels. “I poured myself a few
tequila shots,” says Quintero, “and I started on the lyrics.”
BORDERLAND