Matthew Heineman on Oscar-nominated documentary 'Cartel Land'
The American filmmaker, Matthew Heinman, examines the danger and extremity of filming his award-winning documentary, Cartel Land.
The Mexican cartel and its tangled drug lords have been constraining murders, drug trafficking, and illicit drug markets for decades: rapidly increasing over the past thirty years. In 2007, the cartel controlled a shocking 90% of cocaine crossing the boarder to the United States with an official death toll rising to 60,000 in 2012.
American filmmaker Matthew Heineman got a first-hand experience with the ongoing Mexican Drug War between the Mexican government and various drug trafficking organizations. Executive produced by Oscar winning filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow – and winner of the Best Director Award and Special Jury Award for Cinematography at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival – Heineman’s remarkable documentary Cartel Land provides a detailed examination of the organizations and vigilantes fighting against Mexican drug cartels in Michoachán, Mexico and Southern Arizona. Speaking with Heineman, he discussed the ongoing Mexican Drug War, filming on location and fearing for his life.
“I was really fascinated by what happens when government institutes fail”, recounts Heineman, “and how citizens are forced to take the law into their own hands.” Discussing how the concept to document this issue first originated, Heineman states: “Everyday you open the paper in Mexico and you see decapitated heads, dead bodies and I wanted to get beyond that.” He adds, “I really wanted to take this issue of cartel violence out of the headlines and truly see its effects on everyday people.”
While Cartel Land examines the effects and repercussions of the Mexican Drug War, the film predominantly focuses on Mexican Dr. José Mireles and American Border Recon Tim ‘Nailer’ Foley. Originally unaware of these individuals, Heineman learned about their professions in an article in Rolling Stone magazine. “I knew nothing about the border and the vigilantes in both Arizona and Mexico.” When informed by a journalist about Mireles and his body of work, Heineman recalls, “I was told ‘He’s the single, most interesting man I’ve ever around’, which, as a filmmaker, are words that you want to hear.”
Heineman filmed on location in Mexico for one-two weeks every month for nine months. With a small crew alongside him, the team was introduced to unimaginable and inhumane danger. “I am not a war reporter and had never been in situations like this”, he recounts, “and the film obviously led to me to be amongst some very dangerous circumstances.”
Being witness to shoot-outs, torture chambers and methamphetamine laboratories, Heineman asserted that it was his role as a director that helped him remain sane. “Being behind the camera for situations helped me calm down”, he states, “the camera allowed me to focus on my craft in those intense moments.” On the other hand, he was adamant to keep his experience in Mexico low-key when it came to his close ones. “It was very difficult for my family and my girlfriend to bear witness to what I was doing. It wasn’t worth making them completely terrified: that was not what I wanted.”
Despite the danger that surrounded the filmmaker every day, Heineman asserted that it became much more personal as time went on. A particularly harrowing story that is unfolded in Cartel Land is that of a young widow who was forced to witness the killing and torture of her husband. “To see this woman and look into her eyes: it was almost as if her whole soul had been sucked out of her”, recalls Heineman, “To think that they are the same species of human beings that would do that to each other: that stuck with me mentally much more so than anything else that I witnessed.”
As well as being faced with intense danger and corruption, Heineman remembers further challenges that were faced during filming. “The story was an ever-moving target: it was constantly changing.” With various vigilante groups and organizations being documented, Heineman was faced with alternating and opposite points of view. “These simplistic lines of good and evil and what I thought was occurring had evolved: the line became blurry.”
Being witness to such notorious crime and drug trafficking, Heineman asserts that he found the experience hard to forget once filming was complete. “It was very difficult and weird to come home to New York City after witnessing what I did”, he affirms. “Every single moment you’re there you feel the danger around you and know it can erupt at any moment. It took many days for me to adjust to normal life again.”
As a documentarian, Heineman was adamant about remaining true to the lives that he explored throughout Cartel Land. “I didn’t want talking heads or government officials”, he states, “I wanted it to be told through the eyes that were on the ground.” The director continues, “People want their story to be told and want the world to understand what they’re going. I was very clear about my intentions: I didn’t have any agenda; I wanted to let the story unfold naturally.” And with award-winning cinematography and poignant images incorporated by the director, Heineman adds that he “wanted to match the intensity of what we were witnessing with how we were shooting it.”
Cartel Land exposes audiences to an entire world that many have been fortunate enough to avoid. In a country that shares a border with the most powerful in the world, it is distressing how Mexico continues to generate loss, crime and murder so off-handily. “This is a war that America shares so must history with”, says Heineman, “this is a war that we’re connected to.”
As well as political issues surrounding the Mexican cartel, Heineman also evokes the impact that Cartel Land has had amongst former drug addicts. “I would get people coming up to me after screenings sobbing”, he recalls, “Someone said to me ‘I never imagined that my actions are getting other people killed.’” With now 80,000 people dead and 20,000 vanished without a trace, the Mexican Drug War continues to remain a fundamental and governmental issue. “I hope it opens people’s eyes to a world that they’ve never seen before”, adds Heineman, “and I hope people realise that there is a war happening.”