A Wolfpack Called Ernesto (2024)

Following a few characters called "Ernesto", this documentary follows what can really only be described as the grooming of young people from eight years old through to an adulthood where crime is the only option. Petty crime at first, drug-running for older people, but the first gun takes ambitions to another level and the commentary delivers a statement along the lines that killing a man is fine because we all get killed one day! This isn't a chaotic existence. The gangs have an hierarchy, a loyalty and an inter-dependency that proves to be solid and supportive if you live within it's rules. It's a sub-culture based on survival, the dream of prosperity and an escape from the drudgery of their largely poverty-stricken existances surrounded by a broader society which they feel offers them little but regulation and inhibition. The narrative illustrates well the prodigious nature of gun-crime in Mexico where life is cheap, but to be honest - I hated the photography. Clearly, anonymity was important but the constant use of phone-cameras with obscured faces or mounted on what looked like a rucksack just made me feel a bit dizzy after a while. There is only so much of the back of an head I wanted to see before I felt that I was riding backie on an undulating bike. The camera always tracking fractionally, and often quite jerkily, behind the body movements. Though that style does add and sustain a sense of intensity to the story, it became quite uncomfortable to watch and I found myself just too distracted. It's certainly a story worth telling, and watching - but as a cinema experience, it's not the most comfortable to watch - on any level.